


In Search of Spring

by Attaining



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon - TV, Character Study, Dissociation, F/F, F/M, Fluid Sexuality, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, OK some fluff too, Porn With Plot, Post-Series, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-07 12:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 39,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12841497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Attaining/pseuds/Attaining
Summary: Set post series, Sansa deals with the aftermath of war as Queen in the North and Theon deals with the aftermath of having survived at all. As Westeros puts itself back together, both more divided and united than ever, they reunite in Winterfell. Of course, nothing ever stays simple.Sansa/Theon focused with a lot of others included along the way.Epilogue: Five years later, in Winterfell.This chapter also contains porn. Sansa grew into a wonderful top.TW: Mentions of canon typical physical and sexual violence.





	1. Sansa

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there. This was originally supposed to be a short Theonsa fic, because Mumford & Son's "The Cave" made me ship it, but it sort of took a life of its own, including mostly the Stark family and surrounding relations. There's a lot of time until next season, okay. Starts out with Sansa and Theon with other ships in the background. Not completely sure of this whole fic, but it's been fun to write. 
> 
> I've only read parts of the books, so I'm only vaguely familiar with the concept of the Dragon Horn. I've heard it speculated a lot and it seemed reasonable enough. My apologies if I'm borrowing inappropriately! 
> 
> TW: Mentions of emotional, physical, sexual violence and abuse. Canon typical, which is pretty extreme in my book.

The guards told her he was just here a moment ago. _As Arya had been. She was right about the need for new guards._ Fewer men lived these days to take such posts _._ After the fires of battle had died and Winterfell was in repair from an army of deadmen, something like order started to fall into place. At least the dead would stay at rest, and she was the Queen in the North now. _We’d only needed to wait for the men to kill each other all along._

Cersei had brought sellswords from Essos to betray the peace. Her only surprise was that it was Jaime Lannister who brought the news to Jon. Everyone living fled further South after Winterfell was lost and they all met great grey beasts and their riders, The Golden Company. The dead pressed in from the north and an army of contracted men from the south. They all would have been killed, if the Iron Fleet had not come. Yara Greyjoy commanded, a Queen. She remembered Yara’s hard eyes when she said she had to leave her brother. Sansa knew the pain would come later. She knew because she would feel it, too. Jon and the Dragon Queen had both fallen, their child to be raised by Tyrion Lannister, until she came of age to take the throne. Whatever was left of it, anyway.

But a raven had come days earlier. _Theon is alive._  

Sansa waved the guards away, ignoring the look of relief in their eyes. She knew she wouldn’t need to look hard for him. They were empty now, half destroyed by dragon fire, but the kennels still stood. Her feet took her there, her stomach clenched at what she might find. She hadn’t seen Theon since they escaped together, falling into deep, cold snow, running from the dogs that used to live in these wretched cages. Where she had let them eat her late husband alive. The gate was already open and Sansa stepped inside. It wasn’t so dark now; the ceiling had caved in. She saw him there at the end, dressed in black and brown leather, a sword at his side. His hair was long again, longer than she had ever seen it, pulled back into a tail. But it was Theon Greyjoy.

“You’re alive,” she breathed, closing the distance. He flinched slightly, but continued to stare into the last kennel. She looked in with him, at the frozen straw and snow covered stones that filled most of the cage. “Is this where he ...kept you?”

They both know whom she meant.

“Mostly. How did it happen?” She watched him slowly lick his lips as he turned to face her. He stood taller now, but his shoulders still slouched, as if he couldn’t bear to be higher than anyone’s gaze. His hands twitched and so did he. He almost seemed scared to know. Maybe he thought it was a cruel lie. Sansa imagined everyone dreamed of the wars now, of flesh falling from bone and the putrid scent of guts laid bare, but not them. Their monster was a different kind.

“I tied him to a chair, and I fed him to his hounds,” she gestured, “right over there. He’s dead. I watched. I made sure there was nothing left.”

Theon’s blue eyes were already wet with tears and he pulled her into a hug she didn’t expect, but welcomed all the same. He smelled like sea salt and leather. He said only her name, “Sansa.”

Her eyes slipped closed as she relaxed against him, remembering the way he’d held her years ago, frozen and in shock, and he had been the only warmth she thought she had ever felt.  “You finally feel like you won’t break if I touch you,” she said with a smile as she pulled back to look at his face. His cheeks were still sunken, but his eyes held a light she hadn’t seen since they were all idiot children, safe under her father’s watch. This was Theon Greyjoy, not Ramsay’s pet Reek.

“You’ve never broken and won’t ever,” he said earnestly, a sad ghost of a smile on his lips as he rested a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t think he would ever grin like before; she didn’t.  “I’m sorry, about Jon and Arya.”

Sansa looked back at the cage beside them. “Me, too. They both fought well. I sometimes wonder how any of us survived. I thought to mourn you, too. They said you fell into the sea with your uncle.”

“I did.”

When he said no more, she rounded on him.

“That’s all you have to say? You left us to fight the dead. You left your sister to rule the Iron Islands alone. You left me with only one brother, to put Winterfell back together _again_.” Her eyes flashed in anger as she pressed in on him and she wanted to strike him for his silence, for almost dying, for everyone who had died. He took only two steps back before she found her wrist in his hand, stopping her from touching him. Her breath caught in her throat, her anger boiling to the surface - that anyone would dare to touch her this way. Again.

But Theon released her with an apology, his gaze to her side and at the floor. Maybe there was more of Reek left than she had thought. He shook his head. “I know. I’m sorry. I should have been there for you, for them.

“When… when I fell overboard, I thought I was finally going to die.” The weariness in his voice made him seem like an old man, and it angered her further. He wouldn’t look at her. “Euron held me down with his last strength. Everything was pulling me into the black. I breathed in salt water, and I was ready.”

Some of her ire cooled, but she stared at him, her chest tight.  She hadn’t realized she was clutching his hand in hers. He had wanted to die. There always seemed to be one more person to lose.

“But I heard my name, _Theon_. I thought it was the madness of burning lungs and freezing water. The Drowned God, the old gods, they wouldn’t hear me after what I’ve done. But… I pulled my uncle’s dagger from my leg and thrust it into his chin. I put my boot into his face as he sank. I don’t know how, but there was air. I was choking on it.

“The men that sailed with me to find Yara, they found me. They had looked _for_ me. When they pulled me on board, I saw something in the water, like an animal’s horn. It looked old, something that had been made long before I was ever born. Something told me to take it, like it had been delivered to me.”

Realization dawned on her, her eyes wide. She reached for his face, her hands forcing him to look at her. “The dragon horn. It was brought to Jon and Daenerys. We didn’t know how they’d found it. The ice dragon, it was the only way to stop the razing of King’s Landing. You were there?”

Theon shook his head. “Before I lost consciousness, I bade them to get it to Daenerys. Another ship was salvageable; they took me to Pyke and we split ways. Everything was over by the time I woke. Yara nearly killed me when she saw me.”

“I wouldn’t blame her. I want to kill you sometimes. And I could now, I’m Queen in the North.” She meant it in jest, but he looked at her seriously, his face dark.

  
“You should.”


	2. Theon

He had wanted to tell her to wait, not to go, but she was already gone, so he stared at the kennel floor, trying to imagine _him_ torn apart by his hounds. He knows he used to dream it, hundreds and thousands of ways as his arms ached and cramped and he bled from everywhere, tied to that fucking cross. It didn’t seem real, even with Sansa telling him with such certainty and fire in her voice. It was still impossible to think of him as a man, as easily butchered as any of them. He thought he might throw up. It must’ve been two years or more since he escaped, but every night he’s still there.

His uncle reminded him of Ramsay. When he tackled Euron over the side of the ship, blood pouring from his thigh, he could only see those eyes. Dirty ice, always amused, always promising pain. He couldn’t win the fight. He was still too weak. Every alarm in his body said to run, but he thought they might at least die together.

Theon wanted to tell her, he didn’t think it was the Drowned God that delivered him, but that the voice he heard was hers. _You’re Theon Greyjoy._ She had remembered his name. Even when she hated him, she remembered his name. She made him remember, too.

When he died, jagged shards of ice in his chest, he wanted to rise again. For Yara. Sansa. The ones he betrayed. _Robb._ Though he wanted to believe Reek rested at the bottom of the Narrow Sea, he could still hear his voice, the one telling him to remember his place. He could feel it in the way his hands ached, his scars caught on scratching cloth, even every time he had to piss. If it weren’t for the nightshade, he thought he might never sleep again.  

Sansa was the Queen in the North now. He’d never come to pay his debts to House Stark. Jon might have forgiven him, but the North would remember, if anyone was left alive to remember. If he were to stay in Pyke to serve his sister, they might question her for letting him live, for keeping true to the new alliance between the Ironborn and the Northmen. They might question letting a woman rule. _I did, once. Women were mothers or whores, and I prefered whores._

He didn’t realize he had walked into the main hall and down toward the quarters the steward had prepared for him. Theon was used to losing time. He must have muttered something to himself because a servant quickly made her way around the corner away from him, a concerned look on her face. Or maybe she lived nearby when he sacked Winterfell. Or when the Boltons held it and he was a creature in rotting rags, shuffling about like a ghost.

“Theon.”

His heart sped, skipping. His name, Theon, on Sansa’s lips. Dread sank in under her cold stare. “Why? Why did you come here? You rode alone. You could have been killed by anyone who remembers you in the North.”

An old, indignant part of him wondered why she always had to ask him that. He stepped toward her, trying to meet her eye. Yara hated that he never looked her in the eye.  “That’s why I came. Sansa, I have to answer to you before the North. To you and Bran.”

She looked like a queen, no doubt or question in her gaze. She also looked annoyed. “I’m not going to kill you. You didn’t kill my brothers. If it you hadn’t freed your sister, we’d all be dead now. King’s Landing half stands because you sent the horn.”

Sansa was always a proper lady. Maybe that’s why he hoped Lord Eddard would make a Stark out of him through marriage. He’d always been a fool. But Sansa had become wiser after her time with mad lords and ladies. She hasn’t ever done the things that he has done. She doesn’t see burned boys and Ser Rodrik’s head when she closes her eyes. No one would call her turncloak. Though, he supposed he now really was a kinslayer. He killed his uncle.

Theon realized she was still talking. “If you want to die, do it yourself.”

“I don’t want to die,” he insisted. He didn’t, not anymore. He remembered his name. He stepped close to her, closer than was proper, but this was Sansa. “If it wasn’t for you… I would still be Reek. I would have stayed with him until the gods let me go. I can’t make it right, not ever. I heard you, under the Narrow Sea, it was you I heard call me. If I’m going to live, let me do this the right way. Punish me however benefits the North, your claim.”

Understanding seemed to wash over her and she shook her head in disappointment. Sansa stood taller, chin raised as she said sternly,  “I didn’t become Queen in the North in name alone. I can’t lead men into battle with a sword in my hand, but when the men were gone, it was I who made sure the rest did not die when the dead broke the lines. Women, children, the old and the sick, we all went south. Our winter stores, what we could carry, came with. We won’t starve and sons and daughters still live to grow. I drew battle plans with Jon and Daenerys. The wall is in ruins, and our victory didn’t come from King’s Landing; the North can lead itself and I’m the one who’s going to do it. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

He nodded in agreement. Sansa wasn’t looking for a prince, and Theon wasn’t a prince anymore. Sansa was a woman grown, trueborn and noble. He squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head, trying not to think. Don’t remember that. “You’re right ...your grace.”  

Sansa shook her head with a smile, her red hair falling in waves over her shoulders. She was a woman and he hated himself for knowing, for having _seen_. He hated himself more for wanting.  “You’re insufferable, Theon Greyjoy. But you’re right, I will address the Lords. Most will be here on the morrow anyway to regroup after assessing the damages done. Join us.”

 _Theon Greyjoy._ Theon, he needed to remember his name instead of the thoughts and images that were distracting him from her words, from her red hair that smelled sweet and her soft skin, pale as the winter, and he excused himself quickly before he choked on shame in front of a Queen.


	3. Sansa: Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theon answers for his crimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I will hold on hope and I won't let you choke  
> On the noose around your neck  
> And I'll find strength in pain  
> And I will change my ways  
> I'll know my name as it's called again"  
> -The Cave, Mumford & Sons

The air was thick from the fires burning in the great hall as the lords of the northern houses gathered with their trusted company. Sansa sat at the head of the table, dressed in black and wolf fur, Bran at her side. Brienne, scarred from her battle with the dead, stood with an even fiercer gaze, ever vigilant. Sansa was grateful to have one ally still at her side. If only she had accepted Brienne’s sword the first time they met. Stranger still was the Hound, Sandor Clegane, who had slain his brother in King’s Landing and returned with her at Brienne’s request. She enjoyed the stories of her sister and his discomfort when she insisted he serve at her side.  

Sansa grew impatient quickly as the lords bickered and debated over the distribution of materials and labor for rebuilding. Prideful men and children thinking themselves all the highest priority.

"Why bother putting up with their shit at all?" The Hound grumbled at her side, righted by a sharp look from Brienne. But Sansa agreed. 

She cut through their arguments quickly with little patience, making quick order of things. She spent years watching Cersei and Littlefinger play their games and pull their strings without ever really caring for the people they ruled over. Lord Tyrion had more honor than most men, and when it came time for her to rule, she often remembered his dealings as the Hand. They still exchanged letters and jokes across ravens. Some had suggested she reconsider her marriage to Lord Tyrion, who won the hearts of the common people after the wars. It would have been smart match, ironically, she supposed, but he was of the south and she of the north. Sansa had no desire to marry any man presented her by the politics of the day. She had no desire at all after her time as Lady Bolton.

Sansa rubbed two fingers into the throbbing spot above her eyes when a sudden commotion in the hall drew her attention.

“What is this traitor doing here?” someone demanded. As she raised her gaze, she saw a man spit at the person entering the hall. Boiled leathers, black and brown. _Theon._

Lord Glover swept in front of him. “Do not think Deepwood Motte has forgotten your father’s treachery. How dare you show your face before the Queen in the North with Ser Rodrik’s blood still on your hands.”

Theon only wiped the spittle from his face with a gloved hand and stared back at Lord Glover.

“I will hear what Lord Greyjoy has to say,” she said calmly. She ignored the ruckus that followed upon assigning him the title, Lord. _Half the Houses here once turned on my family. The North remembers, indeed._

Theon stepped around Lord Glover and approached her before bending the knee. “Your grace, with the wars done, I’ve come to answer before your House for my crimes, as I was... as I was your father's ward.”

If she couldn’t feel him practically trembling before her, she would be almost amused. Of everything that has happened to her family since they left for King’s Landing, her anger at Theon melted the fastest. In her bedroom cage, he confessed that Bran and Rickon were alive. Was it terrible of her to care less that he murdered two orphans in place of her brothers? It was just the awful nature of people to place House before stranger and self before House.

“You stand accused of betraying my brother, King Robb, after you swore your sword to him. You stand accused of beheading Ser Rodrik and taking Winterfell from Bran. You stand accused of murdering two orphans, whom you claimed were my brothers, Bran and Rickon. Do you deny it?”

He would not look at her, but he said, “It is as you say, your grace.”

If only they all knew the things that she did to save herself from the hands of the Lannisters.

“Did you burn Winterfell and kill our household before your capture?”

“No, your grace. House Bolton put the household and twenty ironborn to the sword before Winterfell was burned. I was taken as prisoner.”

“Yes, we both endured the treatment of House Bolton before I put the last heir to death. You were a prisoner of Ramsay Bolton for some time. How were you treated?” It pained her to do this to him, but this sort of self-flagellation is exactly what he was seeking from this demonstration. In some ways she was touched. _This is what he asked for_ , she reminded herself as he flinched and his eye twitched.

Theon opened and closed his mouth before he said firmly, “I was tortured, your grace. Flayed.”

The old houses grumbled at the practice. It had been banned in the North ages ago as a savage act, but Ramsay did so love being savage.

“And?”

“I was made to serve Ramsay and the House Bolton, in any task, as the lowest servant. I was… I was gelded, your grace.”

“So the rumors are true,” laughed some of the men. Theon only clenched his jaw.

Sansa leaned back in her chair, glancing toward Bran. He had the same blank look on his face he always did. Bran was less her brother and more a power deeper and older than the godswood. “I expect that many here would long to see you put to death for your crimes. But I will not.”

“Your grace!” She put up a hand at the uproar. The protests were many. She did not care. She was tired of men and their way of ruling the world and she was tired of women who tried to best them at their own game. Sansa wanted to destroy everything rotted and putrid from the crown and start anew. She thought she would have liked the Dragon Queen as family.

“Jon pardoned House Umber and House Karstark, allowing your families to keep your castles despite betraying my family. Lord Glover, even you refused our call once before. Was it not I that took your wives, children, elders, and food stores south? Was it not House Stark who rallied you against the dead? And was it not Queen Yara and the Iron Fleet that allied itself with us to win the war?”

“Aye,” grumbled the lot. The sound of men awkwardly shuffling filled the hall and Sansa closed her eyes to stop herself from rolling them. She supposed that's what she had Sandor for, who was filling the role well. She had really gotten away from being a proper Lady.

“Stand, Theon Greyjoy,” she said as she looked him in the eye. It was hard for him to do even the smallest things. “Without you, I would have died here as a prisoner in my own home under Ramsay Bolton. We jumped from the ramparts together; you pulled me through a frozen river and through snow deep as men. You tried to lead the soldiers away from me when we were caught. Brienne was then able to rescue us both.”

She turned toward Brienne. “It is as my Queen says. Lord Greyjoy was with her grace and he saved my squire from the sword.”

“I see. Is it true, Lord Greyjoy, that you rescued your sister, the Queen of the Iron Islands, from your uncle Euron and restored the Iron Fleet to her?”

“Yes, your grace.”

“Is it true you found the dragon horn that ended the siege on King’s Landing and had it to sent to Jon and the Dragon Queen?”

“Yes, your grace.”

Murmurs broke out throughout the hall. No one knew Theon’s role in the war; he was thought dead. Sansa turned to Bran, who finally spoke.

“If you had not taken Winterfell, I would not have gone north of the wall. I saw what was done to you. I heard your regret. I don’t hold ill will toward you. Once, I did. Not anymore.”

She could see Theon’s chest rise and catch, a look of anguish and relief on his face. She saw tears that were held in front of so many lords, ones she knew would fall soon. She knew he thought she had not broken, the way he had in great shards, but she was held together in cracked pieces, looking strong because she was the Stark in Winterfell. This was her pack now.

“As the Queen of the North, I pardon you for your crimes against my house. You have paid in blood, in the Dreadfort dungeons and across these halls. And I cannot take the life of someone to whom I owe my own. I will not dishonor your sister by taking your head. Our houses are joined in an alliance of Queens, ” Sansa paused, wondering how far she could push her power. This wasn’t a wise decision. It wasn’t calculated. But as she looked at him, she knew this was only man she could bear to take in this manner. How many times had she smiled at someone who murdered the only men she really loved? How many men knew the exact feeling of a flaying knife slowly peeling skin as a disgusting beast rutted its way inside them? “Alliances are made stronger through marriage.”

Theon and fifty heads snapped to stare at her in shock, but Sansa was interrupted as the doors to great hall parted and two frozen figures stumbled in.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, but she knew that fur cloak. She knew it because she had spent whole nights sewing it. Her hands shook as she placed them on the table to stand. It couldn’t be. They were dead. Briefly, she caught Theon’s eye and he had the same disbelieving look on his face.

“Welcome home, Jon,” Bran said knowingly as the two removed their snow covered cloaks from their faces. It was Jon Snow and Daenerys Stormborn.


	4. Theon: Kings and Queens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Awkward reunions abound.

Daenerys could barely stand and Jon did not look much more steady on his feet. The lords and their companies stood in shock. Theon rushed to them, supporting Daenerys while Jon rested his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. They looked like hell. It had been weeks since the battle in which they had fallen, so Theon had been told. How could they be here, now?

Theon took a glove from Daenerys’ hand. The tips of two fingers were greyed with frostnip. He looked back at Sansa. “She needs the maester and warm clothes, now.”

“Maester Wolkan,” Sansa called, her eyes unfocused at the two. She stumbled around the table and ran to them, throwing her arms around Jon. She almost knocked him off his feet, but he returned her embrace. “You’re alive.”

“Barely,” Jon wheezed. He glanced over at Theon, confused, but Theon surmised everything was confusing to a dead man. As Maester Wolkan began to lead the Dragon Queen away, Theon followed at her side, helping her to walk. Her teeth were chattering, but Theon thought he heard a ‘thank you’ among the clicking. A woman of fire likely fared better than Jon. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Sansa and Lord Glover were helping Jon to walk after them.

“There won’t be much else to attend to today. Let us feast tonight. The hunters will have found elk,” Bran said, addressing the Lords and Theon rounded the corner with Daenerys and the Maester.

The entire castle of Winterfell was alive with the news within minutes. Servants came quickly with hot water for baths, warming pans and furs in all sizes. Spiced rum piping hot was brought with breads warm from the ovens. It was not long before Jon and Daenerys both sat, pink and shivering, but surrounded in heat. They both looked exhausted. The Maester announced that a short visit was all that he could permit. There were other wounds beyond the cold he had tended to.

A terrifying thunder sounded, causing everyone to shudder - a dragon yet lived.

Theon watched Sansa’s every move. She was clearly happy, as he knew she would be. But Sansa was a smart woman; how would Jon’s return affect her claim as Queen of the North? He had last been King. And what had Sansa meant about alliances and marriage? It was Roose Bolton who had last uttered those words in his presence and they had brought Sansa into Ramsay’s clutches. He remembered when Ramsay had presented him with the clothes he was to wear for the wedding. He had stood there, naked from his bath and shivering before his master, when Ramsay told him that this outfit was taken from the body of Robb Stark. _Don’t worry, Reek, it’s been repaired. You can hardly see where the knife went in. Fine work, eh?_

He realized that the others had been talking and he struggled to hear what they were saying. 

“But I saw Daenerys fall and I saw you fall with her,” Sansa said. “The Red Woman took the dragon and fled with your bodies. When the dragon returned with the body of the Red Woman only, searches were made. You were never found, but… we had all seen you fall. The blood… the maesters were sure it was too much blood.”

“Aye,” Jon said darkly. Even Daenerys was quiet. Theon could sense the tension between them. It was a relief; for once everyone wasn’t staring at him with hatred.

“It is something we must speak of alone,” the Dragon Queen said, looking pointedly at Jon. Sansa opened her mouth to speak, but Daenerys held up a hand. “I’m sorry, I know you must have many questions, but I need to speak to my… nephew privately first. Please, tell me what has become of my daughter?”

“Your daughter is with Tyrion Lannister in King’s Landing. She’s safe and healthy. Tyrion adores her as if she were his own,” Sansa said with a kind smile. Her words were soft and warm, and Theon admired her even more. She could still smile.

“Then I must go to King’s Landing,” Daenerys said resolutely. A short argument rose over wounds, healing, and rest before it was decided a few days at Winterfell were likely necessary. Jon was quiet, looking more like the brooding youth Theon remembered than the hardened King who forgave him in Dragonstone.

“So you’re the Queen in the North now?” Jon asked, seemingly desperate to change the topic and not show it.

“Yes,” she said and an unspoken agreement to discuss the future later passed between them. “Bran is here, too, as the Raven. Arya… Arya hasn’t been seen either. We think she’s dead. Do you remember Nymeria? This direwolf showed up out of nowhere and Arya rode away on her back, straight into the army of the dead. There was no way…”

They all looked down for a moment.

“It was an honorable death for such a lady,” Lady Brienne said, breaking her silence as she watched over them all. Solemn nods followed and a long silence.

“I thought you could never return to the North, Lord Greyjoy. We also thought you were dead when your sister said you had fallen into the Narrow Sea,” said Daenerys over the rim of her rum cup.

“Nearly was. But I killed my uncle Euron and made it to the surface. My men found me and took me to Pyke to heal. I was injured in the battle.”

Sansa looked affectionately at Theon. Her week had become significantly better, he imagined. “It was Theon who found the dragon horn. He had the ironborn send it to you.”

Both Jon and Daenerys looked at him in shock. It had been delivered by ironborn soldiers - they had assumed it must have been Yara who sent it.  _I should be insulted by their shock,_ he thought, but said nothing. He didn't have any pride left to wound. 

“Theon came here hoping I would behead him. But I pardoned him instead,” Sansa said.

“I didn’t want--” he flushed, but he realized she was teasing him. Theon looked away. “I came to answer for my crimes before the North.”

Jon looked between them curiously before he asked Sansa, “What did the lords think?”

“They weren’t happy, but I reminded them that Theon was not the only oathbreaker who had been pardoned by our House.”

“Good,” Jon smiled sincerely at her. Theon had the uncomfortable feeling he was going to be spoken with later. Oathbreaker, turncloak, kinslayer. He looked away from the lot.

“I’m happy you’re home. Bran told us everything. You might be my cousin, but you’ll always be my moping brother. Get some rest. Bran declared a feast and I have the feeling it’s already been foreseen. I must make sure preparations are under way.”

Sansa and Jon held hands for a moment and shared a look that only family can before she turned to part. Theon and Brienne made to leave with her. Unable to resist, Theon turned to Jon, muttering, “Good luck.”

Jon put his face in his hand as the door to the chambers closed, leaving him alone with the Dragon Queen.


	5. Theon: Jon Snow

He had retreated to the godswood to avoid the looks of the northern lords and the bustle of a castle preparing for a feast. The winter was long, but the travels south had fortified their stores. Ale and wine already flowed freely in the castle and celebrations had already begun. The King had returned from the dead and the Dragon Queen’s fierceness in battle was admired even by the North. Theon’s head hurt from the noise and the castle walls felt too small.

The godswood was quiet. It was easier to remember his name here. He stared at the great heart tree, wondering what the gods make of him now. The Starks had forgiven him, but he had murdered children. There couldn’t really be true forgiveness for that. If it were Bran and Rickon he had slain, he knew he would not stand here. What would he have done, if he had found them? Would he have them killed? Would he have listened to Dagmer if it meant putting his brothers to death?

“Didn’t expect to find you here.” Theon jumped at the words, his hand on his sword, drawing fast. It was only Jon Snow, who held his hands up trying to calm him like a spooked horse. “It’s only me.”

Theon didn’t move, his eyes wide and unfocused. He was breathing fast, heart pounding. After a moment, he blinked. “Jon?”

“Aye. Your sword?” Jon pointed slowly at the blade, halfway from its sheath.

Theon hesitated, but seemed to finally hear the words. He replaced his sword and straightened, trying to slow his breath. “I’m sorry. Thought I was alone.”

Jon moved to stand next to him, looking at the face carved into the weirwood. “Why are you out here? You never gave much stock to the Old Gods.”

“Too many people in the castle. Too loud,” Theon said, returning his gaze to the tree. “That why you’re here?”

“I wanted a place to think.”

He caught himself about to bow and stopped; not much embarrassed him anymore, but losing his wits in front of Jon would be one of those things. Instead, he said, “Then I’ll leave you.”

“You don’t have to go on my account,” Jon sighed. He looked like he’d aged since Dragonstone, but he was always the somber sort.  “You’ve as much right to be here as I do. Time was you couldn’t wait to be at a feast, chasing all the girls.”

Jon was right. Theon had loved the feasts, men boasting, pulling servant girls onto their laps. It was the only time the Northern men acted much like the ironborn. Standing over women, treating them as they liked, drinking and eating until their bellies strained their coats. He felt more at home then, but he was still always at Robb’s side. Robb didn’t care as much for the feasts, acting a proper lord. Theon had to needle him into enjoying himself, calling over girls for him with enough wine for kings. But then Theon had been a servant, the one who was treated however drunk lords and ladies liked. He remembered his mouth salivating at the roasted meats in the Dreadfort and Winterfell, chained to a wall or serving his lord, but he dared not eat if he wanted to save his skin. His belly would rumble as he sliced pheasant for his master. If he was very lucky, his master would feed him scraps in the kennels. If he was not, he would starve for the week. Theon realized Jon was staring at him, so he said,  “Time was you were a bastard. But now you’re as highborn as the rest of them.”

Theon could feel the weight of Jon’s gaze, not sure what to make of this version of Theon Greyjoy. “The rest of _you_ , aye. It’s what I always wanted. Now that it’s here... it wasn’t Targaryen I was hoping to carry. My father wasn’t even my father.”

“He was; you’re too bloody noble not to be his. A Targaryen and a Stark, you don’t have to choose,” Theon echoed Jon’s words, eyes still focused on the weirwood. Those words gave him hope that he could find Yara, that he could be… something again. Of all the people in the world, it hadn’t been Jon Snow he’d been expecting to permit him to think himself a Stark, a son of Eddard. Theon had always been spiteful to Jon. Half a Stark was still more than none at all and spitting on the house bastard made him feel less a prisoner. At least he was highborn. Now Jon turned out to be the true heir to the Iron Throne. Theon thought he should be jealous, but he forgot how.

Jon shook his head with a small smile. “Thought those words might come back to haunt me. I heard you told the Northern lords what Ramsay did to you. It took courage to admit that.”

Theon disagreed, but said nothing. After the flaying knife, the scorn and laughter of men were much easier to bear. He could tell Jon was uncomfortable; northern lords gossip like maidens.

“It wasn’t right, what was done to you. You should have been given a clean death.”

“I only got what I gave to others. I deserved it all,” he said, voice tight. Theon looked down at the snow. “But I wish it had been Robb. I should’ve been there when...”

He could no longer speak, the lump in his throat had grown too large. He loved Robb. He worshipped him, looked up to him, was always so fucking jealous of him. But the moment he was before his father, he was eight years old again. What had he owed to Rodrik and Maron, to his father and sister? If only his mother had been there to tell him; his mother would have known what was right.

Jon leaned his head back, looking at the sky. “We both should’ve been there. I could have rode south, broken my oath to the Night’s Watch. I didn’t. Almost did, but I didn’t.”  

A long silence passed between them. They had both loved Robb. Theon knew because of that time they were drunk, that time they never spoke of after it happened. He had accidentally on purpose gone to Jon’s chambers, not Robb’s, because Robb was on a hunt with Eddard and he’d been angry with Robb for reminding him again he wasn’t a Stark. Jon had been sulking about being a bastard because he always did. They drank. They drank and they talked of Robb and how they could never be like him or with him. Theon called Jon a bastard and Jon called Theon a savage. Then they kissed and fought and came on each other like the stupid boys they both had been.

Eventually, Theon decided to broach the real issue. “Will you take back the crown from Sansa?”

Jon shook his head. “I couldn’t do that to her, not after everything she did during the war. They look up to her. Even if I tried, it’d be a fight. Besides, the chair suits her. Maybe it’s time to let the women try their hand at ruling. Cersei excepting, they’ve done right so far.”

Theon nodded. He didn’t want a throne anymore. Not after everything. The salt throne suited Yara. He sensed Jon wasn’t enjoying the attention he always wanted, but his birthright was clear. Theon imagined the Targaryen child was Jon’s, the way they’d acted at Dragonstone. “Then you’ll go to King’s Landing?”

It was Jon’s turn for silence.

“Ser Davos told me you died and came back,” Theon said. Jon threw him a concerned look. “Yara saved his life in the war, so he returned to the islands with her. I saw him on Pyke. He told me the Red Woman brought you back. He still hoped you lived, somehow. Sansa said the Red Woman escaped with your bodies.”

Jon sighed again and Theon wondered if Snow was ever capable of not brooding. Not that he was a Snow anymore. “It was just her. We’d been ambushed, women and servants were caught in the middle of the battlefield. The Captain of the Golden Company struck her in the heart in a single blow. I saw it. I killed him but he wounded me on the way down. I couldn’t let her… It’s as Sansa said, we left on the back of Drogon. But I forced the Red Woman to go with us. I needed her to--”

Even Theon was shocked by this. Jon Snow defying the laws of nature for a woman. “You brought her back, Daenerys.”

“It was selfish,” Jon growled, pacing. Theon watched him rage at himself. Figures this was the thing that Jon got on himself about, saving somebody’s life. He wondered what it was like, to die. A relief, probably. He wouldn’t want anyone to bring him back, though other people had things to live for.

“But her daughter will have a mother.”

Another beat of silence passed between them before Jon changed the subject. “Is there something… between you and Sansa?”

Theon looked startled. “What?”

“Because if there were--”

But they were interrupted by Bran, who had become an almost permanent fixture of the godswood. Despite Bran’s pardon, Theon couldn’t stand to be near him or look him in the eye. Not after what Ramsay did to Rickon. He quickly excused himself, because he didn’t particularly want Jon to finish his thought either.


	6. Sansa: Proposals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Theon is a little punk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!

Her mind was reeling with everything happening around her. Jon was alive. Her brother was alive. And he was her cousin, a Targaryen and a Stark. He was never a bastard at all; he was the true heir to the Iron Throne. The Dragon Queen was resting and they were also extended family now. But Jon and Daenerys… the child was Jon’s. She had seen his eyes in her. Would Jon want her crown or return to King’s Landing with Daenerys? How had they even survived?

Sansa shook her head. “What? I’m sorry, I was lost in a thought.”

“The honey, your grace, for the cakes.”

“Oh. Yes, we can spare the honey for the cakes, but make them in short supply. These men would eat the whole store if I let them. Consult with the steward, I must dress for the evening.”

The cook smiled in agreement. “Yes, your grace. Shall I send for your handmaidens?”  

“No, thank you. Leave me,” Sansa said and she turned toward her chambers. The cook left with a polite bow to finish the tasks Sansa had given her. The return of the honored dead, without ice blue eyes anyway, would boost morale. This would be a good thing for the lords and their parties, should the wine not flow too freely. Her mind felt too full to handle the day’s events, so she decided to escape to her chambers to collect herself before she put on the face of a queen. Her mother would be proud, she thought, putting together something like this. 

She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, taking a deep breath. She had taken to dressing herself the best she could before calling for help. Sansa couldn’t bear anyone touching her. She burned everything in the room he kept her in, and then she burned anything she saw that reminded her of him. She had not gone there once; it would be occupied by visiting lords and ladies. She had hoped the room was destroyed in the war, but it was still there when she returned. Winterfell was too old to be taken down so easily; this was the first time she felt spiteful about it. 

Sansa jumped slightly at the knock at her door, but she remembered she had summoned him to her. She rolled her shoulders and stood tall before she called him in. Theon opened the door. 

“You called for me, your grace,” he said, head bent, standing in the doorway. 

“Theon, come in.”

He seemed uncertain, glancing down the hall, likely at Brienne who stood watch. “I don’t know if that’s wise, your grace. The people…”

“Might talk. They talk about everything I do. Do you know what they would say about me in King’s Landing? I don’t care. Come in and close the door. I want to talk to you.” 

She could already tell he was thinking about the last time they had been alone in chambers together. He would bring her meals every day. Some days she ignored him completely. Others she begged him to help her. Sometimes she plotted to kill him and run. She had been so angry at him, she hadn’t cared in the least about the pitiful creature he’d become. Now, he shuffled three steps in, just enough to close the door behind him. 

“Jon has no plans to take your crown. You don’t have to worry,” he offered. How had he spoken to Jon before she had? She felt fourteen and petulant, crossing her arms. He seemed to sense her thoughts. “I saw him in the godswood. I think he was escaping the attention of the lords. Or Daenerys.”

Sansa laughed suddenly. “What is going on with those two? Can you believe it, they came back from the dead and I thought - are they wights now? Do we need to burn them?”

“I don’t think that would be a problem for Daenerys. Jon might not handle it well; his hair might singe,” Theon said lightly. He almost smiled at her. Sansa looked at him warmly and he looked away.

“What is it?” she asked. But she knew. He wanted to know what she had meant, about marriage and alliances. 

“What were you going to say, in front of the lords, before Jon and Daenerys came?” He was staring somewhere to the right, at a wall she supposed. Theon stared often and spoke less.

“You know what I was going to say.” Sansa sighed, placing her hands on the back of a chair as she looked into the fire. “We would be a strong match. The Iron Islands and the North finally drawn together by marriage. We could bury what happened in the war, start new. Imagine if trade were open to the islands - there would be no need for thralls and raids.”

She tried to sound convincing, but Theon didn’t look like he heard anything she had said. He was shaking his head. “Sansa, the North would never accept it. And I… I can’t be your husband. I can’t… I’m not a man, anymore, Sansa.”

She watched him struggle with his shame, a muscle in his jaw tensing. Sansa knew he would never give her children. She could bear no heirs between their houses. The North would baulk, but their alliance with the Iron Islands was already forged. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was Theon and how people would look at Theon. But Sansa did not want heirs. She had blessedly lost a child that belonged to the bastard she fed to the dogs. She could not blame the child that almost was, but she could not mourn it either. No, Sansa couldn’t imagine ever allowing a man inside her again. She knew it wounded him to know that he was a safe option, but it was true. She did feel safe with him, and Sansa never felt safe any longer. 

“Do you remember when we were children? We didn’t talk much,” she started.

“Lady Catelyn told you to stay away from me.”

“You knew? At first, it was your father and what we all knew about your people. Raiders and rapers. She was trying to protect me. But then you started chasing maids and servants, visiting the brothels. She thought you would break my heart, or worse,” Sansa said with a laugh. “I was too busy thinking about a prince to worry about it. I was so stupid.”

“We were all stupid,” Theon said thoughtfully. “Your mother was right to warn you about me. I was always up one girl’s skirts or another. I wouldn’t have treated you well.”

“You did once, remember?” Sansa said with a soft smile. “It was after the rains. I had muddied my dress and refused to take another step. I was screaming and crying, just awful. Even Old Nan couldn’t get me back.” 

Theon took a step back, as if the memory were there in the room with them. “I remember.”

“You asked me what was wrong. I explained that I couldn’t get one more drop of mud on my pretty gown and I wasn’t going anywhere. You smiled. You always smiled back then, as if everything were a joke. I thought you were handsome. You picked me up and said, ‘Then I’ll carry you back, my lady.’ I hugged you so tight and I stopped crying.”  

“We were late for dinner and your mother would have had my head if I let you stand out there looking the way you did,” he confessed. 

“Thank you for ruining the sentiment,” she laughed. Sansa approached him, undaunted when he took a step back. She took his hands into hers and looked him in the eye. “I still see his face every night. I can’t close my eyes without seeing him over me. I can still  _ feel _ what he did to me. Do you think I could ever take another man as my husband after that?”

He looked as if she had struck him and her heart clenched. “That’s not what I meant. Theon, you’re the only one who knows. You’re the only one who understands. When you held me in the snow, I finally felt safe. After years, you were the only man to hold me without plotting how to use me. I trust you. I trust that you won’t hurt me. I don’t care about heirs. There’s Bran, there’s Jon.”

“I can't. I can’t. Not after what I’ve done. Not after what he did. I could never even… please you the way a husband should please a wife.”

“Are you saying you don’t care for me?” she asked, earnestly. 

Theon looked down at their joined hands. “I care for you, more than I ever knew I could. I would have done anything to see you safe from him. I heard you call to me from the sea. Sansa, I’m only Theon because of you.”

He pulled away from her, trying to leave, but she stopped him. He shrunk beneath her, and she remembered in another room the way she had grabbed him by his shoulders to remind him of his name. “Then explain it to me. Why, Theon?” 

He only shook his head, his breath coming fast. She demanded to know why again, and he suddenly looked up at her, his eyes wet. They always seemed to be wet. “I gave you to him! I could have warned you, told you to run, but I did nothing. I watched. I watched him… hurt you. You deserve better, Sansa.”

“I gave myself to him,” she said quietly. Now her eyes were just as wet and they were crying together like fools. The shame she had pushed away, hidden under cloaks and crowns, it reared up and threatened to swallow her. “No one forced me to do it, not even Littlefinger. I saw what he had done to you, and I didn’t care. I saw you call him ‘Master’ and call you by that pet name and I was glad he did it. Roose Bolton killed my brother and my mother. A Frey sat across me at dinner. They sacked my home and had the indecency to call it their own. But I let Littlefinger sell me to them.”

He continued to shake, trembling all over. She noticed her own hands did the same. Theon shook his head again. “You couldn’t have known. It was brave, to ally yourself with an enemy to save your family’s lands. It’s not... what he did, it wasn’t your fault. You hadn’t done anything wrong.”

She froze for a moment, the words slowly reaching her. It was not that others had not tried to console her or raise her spirits. It was that none of them knew how to act around her. But Theon had seen everything. Theon had seen her bare, stripped and bruised, naked and crying. He knew exactly what Ramsay had done, and he didn’t shame her for it. He thought her brave. Sansa hugged him, startling even herself. He was family. They stayed together a while and cried before Sansa held him at shoulder length. “Then become my husband. Protect me now. Stay with me now.” 

A long silence passed before he withdraw from her entirely, his eyes back to the ground. He said, “I’m sorry.” 


	7. Theon: Reek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Theon panics over 9000.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for taking the time to read. :)

He couldn’t protect her. He couldn’t protect himself. He had to leave, get out, the castle was smothering him, everyone was looking at him. They would know, know that he had thought himself worthy to be in the queen’s chambers. He was forgetting his place. He shouldn’t have let himself think of her that way. Reek, he thought, Reek,  _ until you’re rotting in the ground.  _

Theon stumbled out of the castle, ignoring a voice that called to him. _Jon_ , he thought. He had to leave. Even the courtyard was crowded with people, merry, happy. How could everyone be so happy?

He stumbled into someone and kept moving. His head was throbbing, he couldn’t think but he couldn’t stop the thoughts coming. Marry her? He was nothing. He was a servant, lower than the dogs. How could he marry a Queen? He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve the food she gave or the bed she offered. He shouldn’t have come. Why had he come?  _ To see her.  _ No, he needed to… he needed to put the past behind him, make things right.  _ Gods help you, Theon Greyjoy. _

It had been here, right here. This is where he’d done it. He spun and saw the burnt bodies hanging, the horrified looks of the household, Dagmer’s grin. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe here. The gate was nearby, get out, get out and away from here.  _ It’s not safe.  _

She had said she wanted him, even if he wasn’t a man.  _ I bet you always thought they loved you back.  _ But she asked him. The gate was steps away.  _ You’re not a lord, are you? _

No, not a lord. See the kennels, that’s where he slept. He killed chickens and brought them for supper from those coops there. He stepped in horse shit. Hadn’t he just mucked? The shovel and bucket were just here. He would be in trouble if he hadn’t done it proper. His master would punish him.  _ It’s not safe here. _


	8. Sansa: Feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Sansa discuss the burdens of romance

Sansa had dried her tears and placed herself in finery, ready to enter the feast. She didn’t expect Theon to be there, but she was happy to avoid him. Somehow, it didn’t occur to her he would say no. She’d been passed between so many men since she left her home and never once were her thoughts ever considered. Now she had finally chosen her own husband, one whom she had seen at his lowest and his best, and he refused her. 

“Are you ready, your grace?” Lady Brienne was there to escort her. She always kept close these days. Losing Arya was another blow to her honor. For such a fierce warrior, she had been repaid in too much loss. Even Sansa couldn’t ignore the pained look on Brienne’s face when she traveled north with The Hound and not Jaime Lannister. Sansa could relate. She smiled warmly at Brienne and made her way to be the queen for the evening. 

The room was already filled with smoke from the many fires going to keep them warm through a winter night. The men were dressed in their finest furs and she wore black fox fur around her shoulders. Servants had already filled the tables with potatoes, beets, onions and meats from the recent hunts. Elk was the dish of the evening and wine was generously supplied. A part of her sighed, half the men were already drunk. At least the spirits were high and as she entered, a cheer rose to the rafters. Shortly after, another cheer erupted as Jon and Daenerys joined them. Sansa noticed some newcomers with Jon. She stood at her place as Jon and Daenerys joined her, taking their seats. 

Sansa held a silver cup into the air. “Friends. The winter and the wars have been harsh. Many of us have lost family, friends, our own blood to the battles. After thousands of years, men fought the dead and men won. And the gods bless us to even bring back friends we thought lost. Welcome home, my brother Jon, who was never a bastard, but was always my cousin, born to my Aunt Lyanna and Rhaegar Targaryen, who married in secret. And welcome home to Daenerys Stormborn. The gods have brought us the rightful heirs to the Iron Throne, and we welcome House Targaryen as family, despite the rule of one mad king and the jealousy of another.”

The men pounded their mugs on the tables, nodding in agreement. The loyalties today are new. Too many who had done wrong were dead. Too many who wanted to do right were dead. Westeros would need to pick up and forge on with whomever was left standing. 

“Our honored dead are laid to rest. We are rebuilding with all able hands. My father used to say that in winter, we must care for each other. It is our pack that will survive. Tonight, we celebrate our victories and our lives!” 

Sansa sat as the men started to tear into fowl and elk alike. Perhaps she should not have made Jon and Daenery’s claim to the south so pointedly, but Sansa was nothing if not prepared for treachery at every turn. She had been trained too well not to be. The servants filled her plate and Jon leaned in to say, “Well done.”

“You’re not mad, that I reminded everyone of your parentage?” she asked, a bit coyly. 

He smiled weakly at her, exhaustion still seated under his eyes. “It’s nice to hear in front of the North that I’m not a bastard. Though, I will miss calling our father my true father.”

She put her hand on his. “Rhaegar Targaryen might have given you life, but our father tended to it and saw you grow. You’re my brother and his son. Don’t ever forget that.”

Jon shook his head, pulling meat from a tray to his plate. “You know Theon said the same thing in the godswood.” 

“He called you his brother? How sentimental for you two.” 

“Not exactly that, but that my father has not changed. Did something happen between you two?” 

“Did something happen between you and Daenerys?” she countered, noticing that Daenerys was more occupied talking to Lord Glover. 

Jon busied himself some more with his plate. “Alright, you win. But I don’t see him here and he left the castle looking off. He ran smack into Sam and Gendry without stopping.” 

“He did?” Sansa asked carefully. She couldn’t decide if she was angry or sad or both. But why should she be? It was Theon who had no opportunities for marriage. Sansa could have any Lord in Westeros. Did she even care for him or was this for her own convenience? He had no power over her. She was the Queen. Theon gave his claim to his sister. He could bear no children as a eunuch. He had been beaten into a servile child who would do whatever his master asked. After everything he had done to her family, she should hate him like the rest. But she asked, “Did he take a horse?”

“No, he walked. Thought he’d be back for the feast.”

“Hmm,” Sansa hummed. She would send Brienne to look for him if he didn’t come back. On foot in this weather with the light gone. Theon may have grown up in Winterfell, but the snow covered trails and markers. He sometimes still acted like the shaking servant she met here. He was too thin and Theon was far from the arrogant archer who rode proudly into battle with Robb. She supposed she did care. He was so honest now. He had no pride left to hide behind and she had never met a man who owned his truths the way that Theon did now. He wasn’t much like the noble knights in her books, and taking every blow without question might grow tiresome soon enough. But still… “Are you going to tell me how you came back to me?”

“It’s a long story, Sansa.”

“But you told Theon,” she insisted. She assumed he had.

“You’re still the same, not to be outdone, are you?” He hunched over his plate, stuffing elk into his mouth, glancing toward Daenerys. “Sam and Gendry came from King’s Landing looking to consult with Maester Wolkan about the North’s stores. They brought good news about Daenerys’ daughter. She’ll want to head south soon as she can ride Drogon.” 

Sansa leaned in. “You’re not fooling anyone, Jon. It’s not just her child.”

Jon dropped his food, lips pressed tight. “Don’t bring it up here. You know that we’re…”

“That hasn’t really been a problem for Targaryens…”

“I’m not a--” he held his tongue, jaw clenched. “Aye. But it’s not how things are done in the North.” 

Sansa sighed at him and took a sip of her wine. “You’re going to have to talk to her about it eventually. I know you’re happy to see Maester Samwell, but she is your family. You’re no longer the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and you lost your title as King in the North. Theon already told me you won’t challenge me for it. You know there’s only one option left.” 

“What of it? It’s always been war, ever since I left Winterfell. I pledged my life to the North and lost it once. Now you want me to reign over the South, a place I’ve scarcely been. I belong in the North.”

“You belong where your people need you, and King’s Landing needs House Targaryen after what Cersei’s done. You’re the trueborn heir, Jon, not Daenerys. But I know you. I see the way you look at her. You won’t take the crown and we both know Daenerys wouldn’t just give it to you, not after all she’s done. Forget what everyone thinks. Who cares? Half the people who matter are in the ground, gone to the gods. It’s time to reap what we deserve. If you love her, be with her.” 

Jon hid his face behind his ale, silent for a moment, trying to calm himself. “Is that what you plan to do with Theon?” 

She pushed her wine forward, remembering the last time she’d done it. Sat beside Ramsay, disgusted that Theon had dared come near her. Where was he? He’d freeze to death if he didn’t find shelter soon. “I’m tired of having my husbands chosen for me.”

“He betrayed us before,” Jon cautioned her.

“He’s not the same person he was before.”

“Are you sure that’s even a good thing? He’s…”

“I know. I know exactly what he’s like now,” Sansa said darkly. “What Ramsay did to me, he did to Theon for months before I came. You saw what he did to Rickon, just to goad you. You know nothing of him.” 

Jon set his mug down. “You’re right. I don’t know. But I want to see you safe after everything that’s happened. Can you blame me? Are you sure it’s what you want?”

Sansa only watched the men feasting below, grabbing at the servants trying to bear the cups and bring the honey cakes to the table. She turned to Brienne. “Remind the lords how servant women are to be treated in my castle halls. Then set a search for Theon Greyjoy. He’s missing and… not well.” 

Brienne nodded and set forth to demonstrate good manners. Jon shook his head, smiling into his ale. She saw him sneak a small smile at Daenerys, who seemed to consider her options before returning it, her attention then back to Lord Glover. 

“Now stop avoiding the question and tell me how you two made it back,” Sansa demanded, her attention less divided. 


	9. Theon: Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theon is dense, but also Theon again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: 12/4/17 - Fiddled with chapters a bit. I deleted two, so if you've already read them, you may be a bit confused. They'll come back later in a different order. If you hadn't read them and this note makes no sense, well, great! Read on!
> 
> Thank you, as always, for reading.

“Lord Greyjoy,” a voice said. It seemed far away as though he were under water. He was under water. Suddenly he was pulled from it and thrown to the ground, choking and coughing. Ramsay’s smiling face was over him, asking him if he really did come back stronger. He kicked Theon in the ribs. No, he didn’t think so. The guards pulled him from the ground and hoisted his limp body back onto the cross. He’d been tied so long, he could no longer walk. 

“Lord Greyjoy!” 

The world came rushing back in waves. He wasn’t on the saltire, he was on the ground. He was cold. He smelled horses. Someone was touching him. Instinctively he fought them, tearing their hands away from his shoulders and covering his hands with his face, pulling his hair. He realized he was shouting, “Get away! Don’t touch me. Please-”

“Lord Greyjoy, it is Brienne. No one is going to hurt you.”

He froze for a moment, trying to collect himself. Lowering his hands, he could see that it was indeed Lady Brienne of Tarth. Theon looked around; he was in a small stable, two horses only. He was cold because he wore only his undershirt. What had happened to his belt and arms? His doublet and cloak? He looked at his hands to find his gloves covered in dirt and horse shit. The rest of him looked the same, like he looked when he was with Ramsay. His head hurt and he didn’t know how he got to ...where ever he was. “Where are we?”

Lady Brienne looked at him with concern, looking over her shoulder at two men he couldn’t make out from the ground. “We’re at a farm, a few miles from Winterfell. You don’t recall coming here?”

Theon shook his head and Lady Brienne stood, offering him her hand. He took it and came to stand, suddenly feeling dizzy and stumbling. Brienne offered to steady him, but he held up a hand. He must not have eaten again. “How long have I been gone from Winterfell?”

“Three days, my lord. Her grace sent me to look for you. She is… concerned.” 

He nodded. Most of the time he made it back to where he started, but sometimes he would find himself with odd possessions or wearing different clothes. People came to him on Pyke and thanked him for his help with their chores or called him Reek. Yara had started sending a guard with him when he left the castle, worried after he’d almost entered a mine to work with the rest of them without any equipment. He might have given his escorts the slip when they landed on the greenlands. “How did you find me?”

“The farmer who lives here said he might know who we were looking for. He said a curious young man had asked to be his stablehand in exchange for a place to sleep,” Brienne said. She hesitantly added, “This boy went by Reek.”

“I’m sorry I troubled you,” he said, ignoring what she knew. He stepped past Brienne and saw an old man standing there with two Winterfell soldiers. “My apologies, good sir, I hope I did not cause you much grief.”

The farmer watched while Lady Brienne and her men went to prepare the horses for their departure. “Did most of my chores for the cost of an egg. I should thank you, Lord Greyjoy. Surprised to find you in good graces with Winterfell.”

“Your surprise is only natural.”

“I heard about you, you know. A cousin was a scullery maid at Winterfell and at the Dreadfort before. She came to me after House Bolton fell to the Starks. Said I wouldn’t believe what happened to the Greyjoy boy after he took Winterfell. Then you show up, acting just as she said.”  

Theon looked at the man curiously before turning away. It seemed everyone heard about his punishment. At least the farmer was kind enough to spare him a eunuch joke. He’d heard them all. He suddenly understood Tyrion’s annoyance at dwarf jokes. Hadn’t even he told Maester Luwin he’d be treated like a eunuch by his people? Ramsay seemed to know everything that had ever been said and had a fitting cut for it. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your home.”

“Never thought I’d see a lord mucking horse shit with his own hands. Common people might like you something better now, and the common people could use someone willing to put in the hard work.”

“Queen Sansa is working to make things right after the wars,” he said with certainty. 

“And a good job she’s doing. Even an old man won’t starve this winter. You going to marry her? That why a lord from the Iron Islands came back to the north where he spent his spring years?”

Theon was annoyed and thought an old part of him was puffed up about some old man speaking above his station. Then he realized he was just angry the question he left behind had followed him into the snow. But farmers deserved to know who was going to make the decisions that would keep them alive or dead. This man’s crops would feed Winterfell. “No… not after the things I’ve done.”

“Be a smart way to make it up to Lord Eddard Stark, treating his eldest daughter right. Unless you’re too scared to repay a debt,” the farmer baited, clasping his hands behind his back.  

“I’m no man, you’ve seen it,” he said with resignation. If he had been Reek here before this man, he surely cowered before him. 

“Aye, you’ve got some things to work through, lad. We’ve all seen things since winter came. Done things we wish we hadn’t. War, the dead. But if the Queen has chosen you, you’d be a fool to tell her she doesn’t know what she wants,” he said pointedly. The farmer cracked his back and stretched.  “Besides, an heir with the blood of Stark will return to Winterfell when the time comes.”

If Theon had been armed, he’d had have drawn his sword. Something wasn’t right about this old man. Startled, he eyed him closely. “Who are you?”

“Me?” said the farmer with a familiar smile, starting back for his cabin. “No one.” 

He felt Brienne behind him. “It’s time to return to Winterfell, my lord. We found your cloak on our journey. You may wish it to keep warm.”

Distractedly, he thanked her and took his belongings. Theon took another look back toward the cabin, wondering what the farmer who spoke so boldly was getting at. But he replaced his doublet, belt and cloak and prepared to return to Winterfell, thoughts heavy. 


	10. Brienne: Lords Greyjoy & Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne escorts Theon back to Winterfell to see the Queen; he makes a detour to speak with Bran.

Brienne kept a sharp eye on him as they returned to Winterfell. She remembered seeing him after pledging her sword to Queen Sansa, dressed in rags, foul smelling even in the dead of winter and unable to stop jumping at the slightest noise. He insisted on helping Podrick, sometimes forgetting himself and responding only to Reek. Sansa would carefully remind him that he was Theon Greyjoy. Despite the tender moments her Queen and Lord Greyjoy shared in their escape from the Boltons, Brienne was suspicious of his intentions toward her Queen now. Clearly, the man was not well. 

As the gates opened before them, stablehands appeared to take the reigns and groom the horses. Brienne swung down from her horse, directing the men back to their posts. She turned to Lord Greyjoy, who was ignoring a stable boy making a face at his disheveled appearance. She gave the child a stern look and he turned and ran to follow the horses.  

“Her Grace wishes to see you,” she informed him.

Lord Greyjoy gestured to himself. “May I change first?”

Brienne only stared him down, her hand ever at the pommel of her sword. Lord Greyjoy sighed, giving her a knowing look. “I’ll see her, I swear it, but I must speak with Bran first.” 

“What business do you have with Lord Stark?” she asked, partly curious and also eager to finish her duty. Her Grace had sent her to ensure he was safely returned to Winterfell, but given his ability to forget himself, she had no guarantee he would not wander away again. 

“Pressing,” he muttered and turned toward the godswood. “Are you coming?” 

It was her turn to shoot him a look. She would entertain his request, for now. 

“You remind me of my sister,” he said as they passed servants busy readying for evening meals. Brienne eyed him, but said nothing. She had not been compared to a Queen before. “She’s a warrior before a lady. Though you don’t seem to share her interest in brothels and ale.”

Brienne snorted at this comparison. “No, I would not.” 

“She also thought I needed an escort. I left them in Torrhen’s Square.” 

“Then it would seem your… confusion is not a new occurrence.” 

He walked for a moment in silence, his slight limp exacerbated by the cold. “Since I escaped.”

“I imagine it’s a relief that the war is over. Perhaps peace will allow you to mend yourself,” she offered. If he was convinced, he said nothing, only carried on toward the godswood, not seeming to mind his state or the looks he received. She wondered how true that was. She often looked as though the looks or comments she received did not bother her at all, despite the sting she had carried for years.

“I’m glad you’re here, for her,” he said suddenly. “When I thought Jon was gone, I was hoping someone as insufferably noble would take her side. She deserves someone like you, someone true.” 

Brienne found herself taken aback by his kindness. She was used to Lords like Greyjoy cutting her down with words, mocking her as Brienne the Beauty, and she would be forced to simply cut them down should they have the honor to defend their words. She muttered a thank you in reply. From what she had heard, she would not have liked Lord Greyjoy in his youth. This person now was difficult to discern, perhaps because he did not even seem to know himself. She tried not to think of another man she knew, who had changed so much and seemed so lost now. The wars had not been kind to Ser Jaime. Queen Cersei was gone and it seemed a part of him had died with her. They had parted in silence; it was not the right time, and she was not sure that time would ever come. 

“I heard you protected her after Arya fell, that she would have died in the battle with the Golden Company had you not shielded her yourself,” he stated, not looking back at her. 

“I was only doing my duty to protect Her Grace. I am ashamed I could not have done so for her sister or mother,” she lamented. Brienne could still feel the spear cut down her face and bounce helplessly off her armour. She had put her sword deep into the gut of that one. As if she needed another reason to avoid a glass, although Lord Tyrion had called it a glamorous wound, one that matched his own. 

“You couldn’t have stopped the Red Wedding and Arya was always disappearing into trouble; was her nature from the start. You betrayed no one, what shame should you carry?”

Brienne opened her mouth to reply, but they had found Lord Stark seated before the great heart tree at the center of the woods. She stopped to allow them some distance, but she could hear their conversation.

Lord Greyjoy moved to stand next to him, looking at the tree. “Were you waiting?”

“No,” Lord Stark replied after a few minutes, his pale eyes returning to dark. “I don’t find myself that interesting. Flying is one way to pass the time now that peace has come.” 

“You said you saw what happened to me… with Ramsay,” Lord Greyjoy began. Brienne could see his hands curls, his stance always a bit awkward.  

“Not all of it, but enough. You were tortured beyond what most men could handle,” Lord Stark replied and he was as even as ever, flat and without emotions, despite the topic at hand. It unnerved Brienne.  

“There wasn’t a choice. He wouldn’t let me die, no matter how I wished it.” 

“What did you really want to ask me?” 

“Did you…” Lord Greyjoy paused to collect his words. “Did you see what he did… to Sansa?” 

“I haven’t looked.”

“Then don’t. Don’t ever. It’s not something that should ever be seen,” he said firmly. Lord Greyjoy sighed and looked up at the sky through the tree branches.  “She wouldn’t want you to see.” 

Lord Stark turned his gaze toward Lord Greyjoy in understanding. “I know.”  

“Thank you,” Lord Greyjoy muttered. 

“You’re welcome,” Lord Stark said, “for the horn, I mean.”

“What? The voice… seeing it by chance… That was--” Lord Greyjoy looked stunned at him, eyes wide. Brienne stared at the pair curiously. Did they speak of the Dragon Horn?  “I thought it was--”

“It was only a suggestion. Your… difficulties made it easier. Euron had the horn on board  _ The Silence _ .” 

The standing lord stared thinking for another moment before he returned his gaze to the tree. The Lord Stark used Lord Greyjoy in the war effort. Brienne looked away, trying for a feigned moment of privacy. Another moment of silence passed before Lord Greyjoy asked, “Is it possible that another heir with the blood of Stark will return to Winterfell? Even if Sansa does not bear children.” 

Although Brienne found this to be an intrusive question, Lord Stark seemed unphased by it entirely. She had suspected that Her Grace would take Lord Greyjoy into her confidence, but she had not been so sure she would take him into her marital bed, especially given his... limitations. She looked over Lord Greyjoy and her stomach turned to wonder what her Queen had endured locked in the walls of her own home. Lord Stark responded, “Yes.” 

Another several moments passed between the men, one seated and calm, the other standing and full of twitching movement. Brienne wondered who Lord Stark could mean, her attention peaked. Jon Snow was a Targaryen. Did Lord Stark foresee the future of his own children? Was such sight open to him? Lord Greyjoy shuffled in the snow, seeming to think, although he did not press for further information. 

“I didn’t,” Lord Greyjoy said, then. Lord Stark turned to him, for once without a knowing answer. “Hate you the whole time. I just chose wrong.” 

Lord Stark seemed to consider him. Brienne wondered if all their troubles seemed small and petty to one burdened with such visions. “No one is exactly who they want others to think they are. I’m not the Bran Stark my family had hoped would return, but I needed to leave Winterfell when I did. Fate can’t make everyone the hero.”

Brienne watched as Lord Greyjoy nodded in agreement, silent. She could not help but sympathize with him. She had always cast herself the knight in the heroes tales, but those ideals are not always what the gods have in mind. An army of the dead does not listen to honor any more than most men she had bestest in battle. When they fought the dead and their fallen friends rose to join the ranks, it was not for honor they pressed on, but for a desperate desire to live. 

“I saw Robb once, when I was still learning about the visions. He confessed to his new bride that he still loved you as a brother, even after everything,” Lord Stark said slowly. 

As Lord Greyjoy bent his head to weep, Brienne took a few steps closer toward the castle. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Update: 12/4/17 - Fiddled with chapters, deleting the two chapters of the 'missing three days' of Theon's dissociative adventure - they'll come back later and I think flow better. So if you see a chapter that looks suspiciously like something you've already read in the future, don't panic. My apologies for the indecisive confusion.


	11. Sansa: Sisters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa and Daenerys share a moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still don't own GoT, but I thank you for reading!

Sansa crumpled the scroll in her hands with a sigh before handing it back to Maester Walkon, who departed with a bow. “Queen Greyjoy will be joining us.” 

“Has she come to celebrate our return to life?” asked Daenerys, giving Jon a look. He shifted, but said nothing.

Sansa folded her arms in annoyance. She was trying to rebuild the North, not host her allies and their very hungry people and horses. “Theon  _ was _ supposed to have come with an accompaniment. He left them behind at the docks. Queen Greyjoy is coming to educate him on how an advisor communicates his absence with his queen. But she sends her regards on your life.” 

Daenerys smiled, the first time Sansa had seen her do so in the North. “She was very protective of her brother in Meereen. Missandei and Grey Worm will be here shortly with provisions brought from Essos to support the North.”

“You’re very generous to use your connections there to rebuild the North, especially on such short notice.” 

“It was Lord Tyrion, actually. It seems he’s been acting well in my stead,” she replied. “Lord Jorah is protecting my daughter. I will take Drogon back to King’s Landing on the morrow, but I will return to ensure the supplies have been distributed myself. I want the North to know our alliance is true. And since my kingdom has already lost the North and the Iron Islands...”

“You don’t want anyone else getting ideas,” Sansa said with a smile. The Dragon Queen nodded. “I think this will be good for all our peoples. The North has always had to rely on itself yet was ruled from thousands of miles away. I’ve never seen such cooperation.”

“Shared tragedy can be a moving thing,” Daenerys said solemnly. The room felt heavy with the weight of the dead. She glanced at Jon, her voice serious. “Will you ride back with me?” 

“Aye,” he said. He seemed to think for a moment. Sansa mused if it was because he was trying to picture riding a dragon or if he feared being alone with Daenerys. “Our daughter will know her true father.”

Sansa watched their awkward silence and wondered if Brienne had any luck in finding Theon. Three days, they’d ridden out and returned with nothing. She would hate to think about explaining that to Yara Greyjoy.

Just then, the great hall doors opened and Lady Brienne strode into the room. She thought to ask Daenerys if she could bring Jaime Lannister along with her, just to give Brienne something to smile about. 

“Your Grace, I have returned with Lord Greyjoy,” she announced and turned to ensure he was still with her. Surely, he walked in with his now familiar limp, same difficulty in meeting her eye. 

He approached her and politely addressed the Dragon Queen and less formerly, Jon. “Your Grace.” 

Sansa stood and approached him, looking him over. He was covered in dirt and smelled of horses. She glanced at Brienne, who looked away. “Are you alright?”

He nodded slowly, making an effort to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry. I… was not well. I didn’t mean to disappear.”     

Although her heart had been wrapped in fear for the last three days, her stomach fidgeting like loose moths, she kept it away from her face. “See that Lord Greyjoy is drawn a bath and given a hot meal. I will meet with you once you’ve rested.”

Theon looked as though he wanted to say more, but only nodded. 

More quietly, to him, she said, “I’m happy you’re back safe.”

Daenerys gave Jon a serious look and suddenly he was standing. “I’ll make preparations for the trip.” 

Within moments, Sansa found herself alone with the Dragon Queen. She returned to her seat. “You wanted to speak with me alone.”

“I’ve been in exile most of my life and when I finally came home to Westeros, it was straight into battle. I birthed a daughter I have hardly gotten to see, my two dragon children live. I found out my consort was my nephew, who has the true claim to the throne,” Daenerys said, staring over the great hall of Winterfell. “I even died and returned to life. I wonder if my body will even know her?” 

Sansa watched her thoughtfully. “Jon is a good man. If he won’t take my throne, he won’t come for yours either. You can trust him.”

Daenerys gave a short laugh. “Trusting men has rarely gotten me what I wished for. Outthinking and ignoring them has.” 

“I know what you mean,” Sansa said with a small smile. “I used to dream of marrying a prince and becoming a queen at his side. Joffrey killed my father and my sister was lost, my family deemed traitors. I was married to Lord Tyrion, though he was kind to me. I was accused of murdering the king and whisked away by Lord Baelish, who killed my aunt. He sold me to the Boltons who killed my brother and my mother. And then there was Ramsay. All women learn that men are not to be trusted.”

“So what are we then to do? We’ve ousted their claims, taken their thrones. We will not repeat the same mistakes of the men before us. Will the throne alone make you happy?” Daenerys asked, a wine goblet pressed to her lips.

“I don’t know if anything can make me happy again,” she replied honestly. 

“Not Lord Greyjoy?” 

Sansa tilted her head considering. “I could ask you the same of Jon. Though you seem to have a number of suitors. I remember the way Lord Mormont looked at you.” 

“You should see a few looks I receive in Essos, as well,” she smiled to herself and looked again at Sansa. “We’ve spent our lives fighting against the odds. The moment I saw my daughter, I felt like something had changed. The whole world seemed new again. I have done vicious things to get here, but I want to rule a world worthy of my daughter’s life. Do I need to be happy to make the world that way?”

“Maybe not,” Sansa admitted. “But it would be nice, wouldn’t it?” 

“It would,” she agreed. “I’ve spent so much time thinking of taking back my family’s throne and then a war of the dead changed everything we ever knew. Squabbling houses, rolling over each other for the power of the day. Now that the war is done and my throne is at hand, I wonder if it will be enough.”

“You aren’t your father,” Sansa reminded her.

“And you aren’t a woman sold to another’s bed,” Daenerys said determinedly, looking her in the eye. 

Sansa shifted uncomfortably. She knew that Daenerys spoke not to hurt her, but as a woman who was also sold and raped. She found her throat could not form words. 

“We are not the things that have happened to us. We are what we make ourselves to be.”

Sansa reached across the table and laid her hand on Daenerys’. “We are.” 


	12. Theon: Something Warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa calls Theon an idiot, but wants him anyway. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

He stared at the water, debating. The bath looked hot, inviting, steam disappearing into the air. He ignored it, returning to the tray of winter vegetables and a thin porridge. Theon ignored the spoon, grabbing the bowl and desperately slurping down the porridge until his throat burned and his stomach protested. He pulled it away, breathing deep. He didn’t have to eat like this now. He looked at the vegetables, they wouldn’t disappear. He didn’t have to try to hide them or eat until he threw it all back up. 

Theon looked back at the bath. He stripped his muddied clothes and discarded them, staring again at the water. He couldn’t step in. Theon placed a fur on the ground and sat next to the tub, dipping a cloth into the water and rubbing his dirty skin. He tried to focus on the things in the room and not on what a bath meant. A knock at the door startled him and he dropped the rag into the water. 

Sansa, it had to be. He pulled on an undershirt and a pair of breeches, still wet. He shouldn’t keep her waiting. Carefully, Theon pulled open the door and peered around the edge. “Your Grace.”

“Well,” she gestured for him to open the door. Sighing, he did so and moved aside to let her enter. She looked around and saw the wet fur next to the bath, that he was still damp, his hair dry and still crusted with dirt. “You didn’t finish your bath.” 

“No. Would her grace care to sit?”

Sansa closed the door behind her and sat next to the table, pouring herself a goblet of wine. “You don’t have to call me that now. Well, are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Brienne already told you what happened,” he said, standing in the corner. 

“I want to hear it from you.”

“I don’t know… I woke up on the farm with Brienne. I don’t remember how I got there.”

“Jon saw you leave. He said you looked upset.” 

Theon paused, trying to remember. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t think. I needed air.”

“You were thinking of Ramsay,” she said pointedly.

He shook his head and stepped toward her. “Not then. I was thinking about you and what I did in Winterfell. I had to get away from it. I can’t stop seeing what happened, Sansa. I see it everywhere.” 

Sansa set her goblet on the table and looked up at him. “Do you think you’re the only person who lives with regret?”

“No. I see it in you, too,” he murmured. Theon thought back to the last thing Bran had said to him, just before he left him alone in the godswood:  _ You could make her happy, if you tried _ . He found himself sitting on his knees before her, staring up into her blue eyes. He held his hands out to her and after a moment’s hesitation, she placed her hands in his. She felt so warm. “Sansa, I want you to be happy. I can’t promise I can do it. He broke me… he broke me into so many pieces I don’t think I can find them all. I get lost trying.”

“Theon--” she began, about to protest his reluctance again, but he held her gaze and she paused.

“I want to do right by you. If I can’t do anything else right again, I want that to be the right step that I take. If you think I’ll make you happy, then you have me.” He watched her without breathing, wondering if he’d said the right thing. He wanted to please her. He wanted to worship and serve her, and he knew that was the part of him that still cowered at sudden sounds, that felt every shadow was moving to cut him, but he also remembered other things. He remembered his mother pulling an unbroken conch shell from the ocean and showing him how proudly it sang despite being beaten against the shores. He remembered pulling Robb up from training, his face fresh with mud and tears, and praising the boy until he laughed. He remembered how they flew from the ramparts, unsure if they would survive the fall, and he remembered the moment he decided he could endure Ramsay until his death if it meant Sansa would be free from him. Some part of him still wanted to be a good man. Whatever that meant for someone like him. 

Sansa blinked away unbidden tears, looking down on him. “You won’t spend the years wondering why I chose you, if it was just because of what you lost?”

“I’m just lucky to have been chosen,” he said honestly and he watched her face fall as she sucked in a hard breath. 

“You’re such an idiot sometimes,” she laughed and cried at the same time. “I wouldn’t have thought about you as you were. You didn’t know yourself. You wanted to be loved in the North and loved in the Islands, but you made everyone hate you. You listened to fools instead of those who cared for you. So listen to me now. I know he broke you, Theon. I’ve seen you like no one else has… the way you’ve seen me. I saw you lost to Reek. But you came back for me, and you would have gone back to  _ him _ for me. I don’t care that you can’t please me the way you pleased a dozen other women before. You please me as you are.” 

He wasn’t quite sure how they had both ended up crying together, hand in hand, over something as foolish as a marriage proposal, but he couldn’t stop himself and he didn’t think she could either. He thought that other men could look into her eyes and kiss her fiercely and with passion after proclaiming his desire to wed her. His passions were lost and he found it hard to remember what it was like to want a woman as a woman, to take her and spill seed inside her. But that was just what men wanted and what they all hoped women wanted, too. Theon reached up to gently cup her face and she leaned into his touch, her eyes slipped close. He didn’t know if she meant it, that he pleased her, but it was something smoldering and hot to keep close in the winter night. 


	13. Sansa: Two Queens in the Castle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa and Theon send off Jon and Dany and big sister arrives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments and for reading. :)

They watched as Daenerys and Jon took to the air on the back of a great dragon; they nearly were blown to the ground by the wind from his great wings. Sansa waved as they left, trying not to jump and shudder at the always frightening sound Drogon made. She sensed Theon step beside her. 

“You didn’t tell them before they left,” he pointed out, hands behind his back, watching the dragon fade into the distance. 

Sansa finished her wave and smiled at him. “Isn’t it fun to have a secret, something to giggle about like little maidens?”

“...As you say,” he replied helplessly, unwilling to diffuse her joy, but far from agreeing. 

“Well, the way you and Robb would snicker when you talked about the things lords and ladies did in private.”

He nodded in appreciation. “Aye, and not having to hear their complaints at what a terrible idea it is.”  

“They’ll be back in a few days, and anyway, your sister’s reaction will almost be as funny as Jon’s. Daenerys thinks she’s very protective of you.” Sansa stretched and turned back toward the castle for another long day of administering to lords and their endless demands. She did not want to admit it to everyone. This was the one foolish joy she’s had in years and she was going to enjoy her secret romance as long as she could.

“Sansa, she might not be happy that I chose the North over the Islands. I was born to the sea,” he said seriously. She imagined the doubts were the same he’s had since he was a child. 

“There’s a difference, Theon, you’re doing this for your people, not your father. This isn’t Balon putting your head forward to save his own. I hold no great sword over your head. You know that our marriage will strengthen the alliance between the North and the ironborn. Your people do not sow, but mine do. My people do not sail, but yours do. Yara will need your help to end the raiding. One command can’t change something written as divine right by your Drowned God.” 

“Don’t, please,” he said quietly, glancing over his shoulder to see if they were close by to eavesdropping soldiers. “I’m not so noble to do this for my people. You know who I’m doing this for.” 

For a moment she considered if he meant he married for her or the dead orphans he couldn’t stop thinking of. She dismissed the thought; although Theon was happy to convince himself he was an evil, uncaring man from the start, she remembered the times he had acted a brother. She remembered seeing him when he was quiet and reading, carefully studying the history of his people as a gift from Maester Luwin. They both had just wanted to live up to the roles they’d been told they deserved. It was neither their fault that the gods had other plans for them. 

“I care for you,” he insisted, as though she didn’t believe it. 

She felt a small pang in her chest as he said it. How many men had promised her their care? How many said they wanted to make her happy? His words didn’t matter to her as much as how he acted. He never tried to usurp her power in front of the men. He supported her compromises from the morning and pointed out something she had forgotten altogether. He had not tried to take from her that which she was not willing to give. She was not sure she loved him, but she thought she might be able to. Sansa met his eyes. “I know you do.” 

“Open the gates!” a call from the towers rang out. Sansa and Theon returned to the courtyard as horses pounded into the mud of the winter afternoon. Stablehands appeared to take their steeds and with a dramatic flair, Queen Yara dismounted, her leathers swirling behind her in the wind. Twenty grizzled looking men followed behind her, with Ser Davos and a muted looking woman following. Queen Yara ignored everyone, sauntering up to Theon and pulling his doublet straight. Sansa tried to look offended, but she was mostly entertained. “Where else should I look for my little brother but Winterfell?”

Theon rolled his shoulders, avoiding her gaze. “Yara.” 


	14. Sansa: Yara Greyjoy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa and Yara discuss business

The Ironborn and the Northmen were set to celebrating their newfound alliance through a drinking contest, and so Sansa took her leave. Queen Greyjoy had started off the festivities herself against Lord Glover before she set her men to take over and she could slip after her northern counterpart. Sansa could feel her presence on the battlements and glanced toward the older woman with a nod. They both looked into the winter night, watching the snow swirl under a large moon. 

“I keep wondering what it is that brings my brother back here,” Yara said, swiping snow from the stone and leaning over the edge, still with a drink in her hand. The steam from the mulled rum disappeared fast in the night. 

“The people, I suspect,” said Sansa, adjusting the furs on her shoulders. Yara shrugged and took a drink from her tin mug. “You didn’t come all this way just for your brother.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve raided the north to find him.” 

Sansa smiled warmly at her. “You really do care about him.”

“He’s my blood,” The Island Queen said firmly. “It murdered our mother to lose three sons to my father’s rebellion. Two to the sword and one to the North, a child imprisoned under the threat of Eddard Stark’s blade.”

“We treated Theon like family. He was my brother,” Sansa said, a wave of defense falling around her in her father’s name. 

“Do you think he owes your family a debt?” Yara asked incredulously, staring Sansa down. A storm lived in her eyes and Sansa felt the need to stand straighter. Yara had led men into battle herself and Sansa wondered if she feared anything. Still, Sansa would not be intimidated. 

“Not any longer. His crimes were pardoned before the North. He came here to face them in front of the lords. It was an honorable thing to do,” she added.

“We’re ironborn, I did not fault my brother for taking this castle by right of conquest. It was our way. But he was a fool to murder the children. That is the only debt owed, and it isn’t to the House of Stark.” Yara had turned away from the night and leaned back against the stone, observing the drunken contests of the men below. 

Sansa did not move. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Did you know he was a shy child? Always too soft for his big brothers. He’d come to me angry after they’d beat him and pretend he didn’t want to be near me. I’d hold his hand on the way back to the castle til he started to cry and clutched at my waist,” she said quietly. Sansa had a hard time imagining Theon as anything other than a hardheaded, brash boy. Yara continued, “Not everyone looks to the Starks as the honorable heroes in the North. Your father will always be the man who killed my brothers and stole my terrified baby brother away from his mother’s arms.” 

Sansa gave a knowing smile. So Sansa was stealing her brother away, was she? “Then you know.”

“That you plan to take my little brother into your bed?” Yara snorted and drank deep from her rum. “He hasn’t stopped mentioning you since he returned to Pyke. He tells me you’re brave.” 

She reached out and snatched the mug from Yara, taking her own swig before saying, “Crude, but not exactly wrong. You know it would be a smart match.” 

“Aye, that’s why I’ve come. And to ask Winterfell for a supply of wood and grain; my uncle tore down every tree and trunk on the Islands for his fleet. He didn’t much think how the people would be fed.” 

_ I knew it _ , Sansa thought. Yara was a smart leader, but so was she. A small sensation of victory welled in her chest. Sansa won battles her own way. She teased, “You don’t worry if I’m worthy enough for him?”

But Yara was serious then. For someone who always seemed willing to jest or ease a tense situation with drink, it was an odd look. She imagined only her enemies often saw it. “You must have noticed he’s not whole. Have you seen him?”

Sansa felt the hair on her arms rise, her heart quicken. She did not want to discuss such issues with anyone, let alone Yara Greyjoy. “No. But I know that he’s been gelded. I don’t care.”

“I don’t mean his cock. Most men would be better off without them,” Yara said seriously. “When I marched on the Dreadfort to rescue him, my brother did not recognize me. Theon turned on me to hide in a shit stained dog cage behind the man who mutilated him. We both know that cowering pretender is still there.”  

Sansa thought about the three days he was missing. Brienne had found him asleep in a farmer’s stable, calling the farmer his lord. Sansa had already noticed the times he didn’t seem to listen, his eyes far away. He still jumped at every noise and Sansa had noticed his bed was never disturbed. She imagined he still slept on the floor and turned many of his meals away. But she knew this in ways that Yara could not. Yara had not been a prisoner to Ramsay. Sansa rarely slept in the comfort of a bed without feeling smothered, waking with a hand pressed to her stomach, expecting to find blood there. She ate less and drank more. If she hadn’t started to feel like Cersei, she would have continued. Now, she drank less and slept less. 

“I know,” she said. “I was Ramsay’s prisoner, too. I’m the only one who really knows.”

Yara appraised her, as if determining if Sansa was worth her acknowledgment, and firmly nodded. “That reminds me to thank you for ending him painfully. But you need to learn a weapon if you’re to be Queen of a land as frozen as this. Piss freezes in midair. I’d take the Storm God any day.” 

“Are you offering to teach me?” Sansa asked with a small smirk. She was more interested in the pursuits of a lady: sewing and leading her people into prosperity, but she had admired Yara’s strength in battle, the way she now admired her own little sibling. 

Yara grinned at her and clasped a hand on her shoulder, stealing back her mug. It was a deal.


	15. Theon: Big Sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yara came to set Theon straight like always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can tell I was waiting a while to get an invite to the site. XD
> 
> Thank you for reading, it is much appreciated. 
> 
> "The bondsman came to my door early the next day  
> He said 'I come lookin' for you brother  
> You don't know what kind of trouble that he's in'
> 
> How long is this going to last  
> You can't keep reliving your past  
> Johnny law keeps a poundin' at my door  
> 'Cause you screwed up some new score
> 
> So brother, raise another pint  
> Rev up the engine and drive off in the night  
> See you somewhere some place some time  
> I know there's better brothers but you're the only one that's mine"  
> -"Brother" - Murder by Death

Theon came back to his room to find his sister with her feet on the table, cup lazily in hand as she feasted on a leg of fowl. She’d started a fire and the room was warm despite the howling wind. He closed the door behind him slowly.   


“I’m sorry I didn’t say where I was going,” he offered before sitting across her at the table. 

Yara shrugged. “You’re not hard to figure out, little brother. But you did scare the piss out of your company when they came back with their tails between their legs.”

“You talked to Sansa?”

“I did.” 

Theon glanced up at her imploringly.  _ Say something. _

“I didn’t know you wanted to get married,” was all she said. 

“I don’t. Didn’t. But Sansa does.” He rocked slightly, fidgeting with his missing finger. It ached more in the cold. 

“What’s the problem with her, then?” Yara hummed, pulling a piece of gristle from her teeth and tossing the bone to the table. She kicked her feet to the floor and leaned forward to pour herself more ale and she poured him a cup, too. “Drink.” 

He’d given up on arguing with her. When his head swam from ale, time faded faster and he didn’t mind it, but he felt on edge, unable to keep watch, keep safe. It was a good way not to think, though, so he pulled the mug to his lips and drank deeply. She was happier when he drank like an ironborn. “I don’t deserve her.”

“I’m tired of hearing your self-hating whining every time something good comes your way. What is it now? The orphans you killed or sacking Winterfell? When have you punished yourself enough? When you’re dead, is that it?” She was leaned forward on the table, staring him down hard.  _ She’s drunk,  _ he thought. 

“I…” he started, but the words wouldn’t come. How could he tell her? How could he tell anyone? He knew what Ramsay would do to her and he didn’t warn her. He didn’t help her until it was too late. He watched them on their wedding night. He knew what else he did. Ramsay would tell him in detail and repeat the cuts on him so he could feel closer to her. Ramsay would take him on the floor and describe in detail how Sansa looked, how she cried, how she screamed.  _ Are you jealous, Reek? Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you. I’ll let you chose the next part I take.  _

His hands were suddenly empty and he realized Yara had slapped his mug away from him, demanding an answer. She was angry. “Well? Do you want to betray us all again and go back to living as that creature?”

“N-no,” he stuttered. “You know what happened?”

“The whole damn castle knows you disappeared for three days, Theon. Same as you did on Pyke. You could get yourself killed, especially if you plan to rule.” 

He ran his hands over his face and leaned his elbows on his knees. He didn’t want to rule. He didn’t want to face anyone or lord over anyone. He wanted to disappear, be a servant in the background. But he felt compelled to be near her; he couldn’t give them up, Yara, Sansa. He could have let Jon take his head or taken the Black, but he wanted to see them.  “What would you have me do? I don’t know about it until it’s over. I can’t stop it.” 

She shifted her chair, clasping a hand on his back. “You have to figure it out, little brother. At least let us watch over you until you do. You can’t keep running away. I know home is a strange word for you, but you will always have a home with me. If you can’t leave Winterfell, then stay.”

He hated to cry in front of her as much as she hated to watch him, but he couldn’t stop the shuddering sobs that escaped his chest. “I saw what he did to her. He made me watch. And I didn’t stop him. I couldn’t stop him, Yara. I could never stop him.” 

She sighed, pulling him to her breast and holding him with steady arms as he sobbed. She kissed his head and let him cry. He felt like a little boy in her arms, remembering how she would comfort him after his brothers would teach him a lesson. Would he always be this weak? 

“Little brother, she does not hate you for it. You escaped, the both of you. There will always be someone stronger, someone who knocks us down. We’re ironborn. Our people face the storm walls higher than ships and they tear us down. Do we yield?” She held him at arm's length, peering into his eyes. 

“No,” he said quietly, trying to hold her gaze. Everything was numb, pressure closing in on his chest. 

“No,” she echoed. “We pick up and carry on. They took you to the North, but the sea will always be in your blood. The past is done. Let it burn and find a new ship to sail.” 

He nodded slowly. Yara pulled her mug back to her lips and swayed to a stand to depart. He wiped his face, trying to compose himself. “How is Ellaria?”

Yara glanced at him again before turning back to the door. “Much like you.” 

Guilt pooled in his stomach. Yara had ended up with two broken people to watch mend. He reached for bread on the table to show Yara he would eat and with a nod, she left. Theon brought the loaf to his mouth and pondered how in the seven hells he was supposed to fix a problem he didn’t even know was happening until it was done. He washed down the bread with ale and stood to find a glass. He rarely looked in them, only when he needed to shave, because he didn't trust another to do it. Sometimes when he looked in, he didn't recognize the face he saw. It was the same face as ever, but it felt like it belonged to another. Now, he could see himself. The same eyes, the same hair that's gotten too damn long but he didn't want to deal with it so he pulled it back. He didn't know how to tell others about the voices he heard. He'd always heard them, it wasn't until he escaped he realized others didn't have parts that had conversations. How was he supposed to get rid of Reek? Theon set the glass down and returned to sit in front of the fire.  _I have to fix this, for Sansa._


	16. Sansa: On Eunuchs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missandei gives Sansa some helpful advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That one where Missandei teaches sex ed.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Sansa was flooded with relief when the Unsullied arrived with supplies from Essos. It would be easier to convince the lords to give to the ironborn relief supplies with these newly come. The need was high everywhere. All of Westeros had faced siege, entire great houses had fallen. Sansa smiled warmly when she saw Missandei and Grey Worm again. She had only met them briefly before, but she saw the way they looked at each other. They were clearly in love.  _Will I ever look at Theon that way?_

However, Grey Worm looked troubled. Sansa asked, “Was your journey difficult?"

“There are many hungry people. They try to take supplies from Unsullied. But we did not kill them.” 

“Er, thank you for not killing my people. Though, I’m sorry they troubled you. Inform Maesters Walkon and Samwell where you encountered the most trouble. The lords are still here; if they can spare stores to the common people now, we’ll restore them on the way back. The steward will see you all housed and supped.” 

Grey Worm nodded respectfully and took his leave to meet with the Maesters. Sansa noticed that Theon stopped him and took him to the side for a word, but she was distracted by Missandei. 

“You have seen her grace? Our Queen?” Missandei asked with concern. 

“Yes, she is well. Jon is with her. They are both just fine. We saw them off on the back of Drogon only days ago. I’m sure she’ll return shortly,” Sansa said in assurance. Missandei must care for Daenerys. She could see the breath of relief she released. “Now come, you must tell me all about Daenerys if she is to take my brother to King’s Landing for good.” 

As Sansa took Missandei’s arm and began to lead her away, she looked as if she was trying hard to say something politely. “I cannot betray my Queen’s confidence, your grace.”

“I don’t mean military strategy. I mean, personal things. What is she like, what sort of person is she? Tell me a story where she was greatly embarrassed. We’re already family, technically.”

“I do not know that I wish to embarrass my Queen, even for family,” Missandei said wisely. 

Sansa smiled at her. “You’re a wise adviser, Missandei. At least, you must tell me about other things. Walk with me. Have you ever seen the snow?” 

Missandei nodded her agreement to walk with Sansa, but did not look particularly enthusiastic about walking outside. “The weather is warm where I am from. Snow is not something we experience. I am not sure it is… agreeable with me.” 

“Winter is here and we all must deal with the cold. That’s why we stay together in the North; the pack must always live,” Sansa sighed aloud. That’s always been the Stark way. “Don’t worry, we’ll walk in the godswood near the hot springs. It always feels warmer there.” 

They walked in silence until they reached the heart trees and the sound of ravens cawing in the trees. Bran was nowhere to be seen, so Sansa lingered at the tree where she had been married to Ramsay.  _ How could I have been so stupid? _ Theon was a walking ghost, calling himself another name and licking another man’s boots. These were the people who murdered men and woman at the dinner table.

“Is there something you wished to speak with me about?” Missandei asked carefully, surely noticing how distracted Sansa must have appeared. 

“Do you know it’s our custom to marry in front of trees like this?”

“No, I did not. Do they hold special value to you?” Missandei gazed up at the heart tree, peering into the face carved there. Sansa wondered how strange it must seem to someone from another land. None but the North and free men still worshipped the old gods. 

“They’re weirwood trees. They’re sacred to the old gods of the forest. Heart trees have the faces of the gods carved there,” she pointed at the eyes in the wood.  “We come before them in marriage to beg their blessings. Here is where the north prays, before the eyes of the gods.”

Missandei smiled. “A beautiful belief. One must feel very connected to their faith here.” 

“I used to think so. Bran still does,” Sansa murmured, looking up at the branches. She remembered the many prayers and songs she sang in her youth. “Have you thought of marriage? I know that’s a very forward question.”

Missandei did not hide her surprise, but seemed to consider the question. “I come from the Island of Naath. We do not have marriage, so many of your Westerosi customs do not hold the same meaning.”

“I wouldn’t mind not having such a convention here, but it’s the way of things. It’s the best way to secure alliances.” She shouldn’t feel so bitter about marriage; her name and womb were what kept her alive. Joffrey, Tyrion, Ramsay. How had she really come to think about taking on another man?

“Are you…” Missandei started, “Are you perhaps thinking of marriage, your grace?”

“I wasn’t going to tell everyone, yet,” Sansa said with a sad smile. “I wanted to have something that felt mine, just for a moment. But seeing you and Grey Worm together, I had to know something.”

Missandei looked flush and waited to for Sansa to continue. 

“You’re very obviously in love. But he’s a eunuch…”

“Grey Worm was cut as a child, like all Unsullied,” Missandei started. “I used to wonder why I saw Unsullied soldiers going to brothels. It was hard to imagine what they would want there. But the Unsullied are still men, no matter how the Masters tried to make them only warriors. Perhaps Grey Worm does not… desire the same way other men desire, but he desires my happiness. And he gives it to me. Is the man you wish to marry…?”

“Yes,” Sansa confirmed, looking at her. These weren’t the topics ladies were supposed to discuss. What would her mother think, seeing her standing before her father’s gods, asking about an act she had never once enjoyed? Perhaps it was a good thing she was dead, rather than know what had befallen her daughter. It had been her duty, and she had done it. 

“I see,” Missandei said. She was courteous not to inquire more. They stood together for an awkward moment, looking at anything else but each other. 

Sansa wondered if Missandei was going to offer more or if she really needed to ask. “And you two have… laid together?”

Missandei turned to Sansa then and looked at her with fondness. “I know this must be difficult for you to ask, but it is possible for… sex to be pleasurable, even if a man has been cut. He may not lust for you the way you would expect a man to lust, but he can use others parts to please you. They can be used very well.”

Sansa let out a short laugh. It felt ridiculous to have this conversation. She knew what other parts a man could use. It just felt difficult to imagine him using them well and for her own pleasure. “But what is there for him?”

“Have women not always fulfilled their duty to their men regardless of their pleasure?” Missandei asked. Sansa could not help but nod in agreement. “Still, there are other ways. I did not want to tell him, but I sought knowledge from others who followed the queen. Many had worked in brothels or served their masters in such ways. I learned that there is a place… inside of a man that can be very pleasurable.” 

“Inside…” Sansa repeated, looking seriously at Missandei. The Island woman nodded in confirmation. “Through his…”

“Yes,” she confirmed again. “I have been told by men who have lain with other men that it is very enjoyable.”

“So you’ve just been told?” Sansa asked curiously.

“I would not wish to embarrass him…” Missandei said slowly, but Sansa looked at her desperate to know. There was something lewd about it that Sansa found refreshing to discuss with another woman. This was not about her body being invaded to be filled with heirs and the risk of death at birth. To please a man as he would please a woman, it was an intriguing idea. Sansa gestured for Missandei to continue. “It is true.” 

“But then did you have to use your--” Sansa began, but a sound gave her pause. 

“Your grace?” Grey Worm’s voice shocked both women into jumping up straight, both swinging around to stare not only at Grey Worm, but Theon Greyjoy. Both women coughed lightly and smoothed their skirts as the men stood looking confused at what they had interrupted. “You should not walk without guard.”

“Yes,” Sansa said quickly. Then, “No. This is Winterfell; my home is safe to me. Missandei makes a fine guard, don’t think you?”

“Yes, your grace. I would defend you well,” Missandei agreed lightly, trying not to smile.

“Then please see me back to my chambers, would you? These men are prowling about looking for trouble. What would they expect to find?” Sansa took Missandei’s arm and quickly led her away. 

As they rushed out of the godswood, she could hear Grey Worm protest with news and Theon reply, “Give it up. We’ll never know.” 


	17. Yara: A Lady About A Sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yara plots to ensure Sansa gets some training in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. :) Yara is pretty shameless.

Yara lounged at one of the head tables, feet up and a drink in her hand. These Northmen did not know what to make of her. No wonder her brother ended up such a spoiled little shit growing up in a place like this. Servants for this, servants for that. She hadn’t once seen a damn lord pour his own drink and they pawed after the girls like dogs in heat, their bellies full on wine and lard. The only other one worth taking an interest in was the little lady from Bear Island. Given the way she scowled at Yara, she figured she wasn’t yet forgiven for the regular raids the ironborn tended to make in her lands. Yara raised her drink at her.

“I saw that you spoke with Lord Greyjoy. What did he need of you?” she heard Missandei ask of Grey Worm.

Grey Worm paused, looking serious. “It is a matter between men.”

“How mysterious,” the Queen in the North muttered as she took a seat next to Yara in the great hall.

“Hardly. Eunuch problems, I suspect.” Sansa eyed her with confusion and Yara leaned in, gesturing crudely. “Pissing troubles. Saw a maester in Volantis stick a nail into a man just so he could go.”

Sansa made a face and Yara laughed at her, resting a hand on her shoulder. The Northern Queen shook Yara off, shooting her a glare. Yara held up a hand; she didn’t like to be touched any more than her brother. They would be a perfectly boring pair together.

“That’s what you’re signing up for, don’t tell me you’re squeamish, your grace,” Yara said lightly. Sansa rolled her eyes.

The beastly man with the half burned face strode to the table and whispered into the Queen’s ear. The Dragon Queen’s return must be soon at hand. Yara had seen her die; she’d been sure of it. To learn she had somehow survived left something sour in Yara’s stomach. She set her drink on the table and rose to her feet. She had to see a lady about a sword.

It wasn’t hard to find her; she towered over even the men. Brienne, they called her.

“You’re a beast of a woman, aren’t you?” Yara asked with a grin, looking her up and down. She was not unattractive; she was simply unfeminine. That had never been much of a problem for Yara. Although she preferred slipping inside the skirts of women like Ellaria Sand and Daenerys Stormborn, the idea of bending over a strapping island ass like hers did not go unthought of by Yara. Brienne did not seem to recognize the compliment and merely stared, her lips pressed into a hard line. “Lady Brienne of Tarth?”

“Brienne, please, your grace,” she replied tersely.

“You saved my baby brother’s life. I thank you.”

Brienne nodded, hand ever set on her sword. “I was only doing my duty for my Queen.”

“And tell me why it is your queen doesn’t know how to hold a bow or sword,” Yara challenged.

The woman knight looked puzzled by the question. “I am the sword for my Queen. She does not need to burden herself with this task.”

“You find your sword a burden?” Yara asked as she circled around Brienne. Yara drew her steel. “I thought you were a warrior.”

Brienne seemed to eye her with suspicion, uncertain of where this would lead. Her sword remained at the ready. “I am.”

Suddenly Yara took a swing at her, one easily side stepped by Brienne. She drew her sword, ready to defend herself. The Island Queen gave her an interested smirk, launching herself at Brienne and striking high. “Then doesn’t it get your blood hot at the thought of putting that long sword inside a warm body?”

Their swords met between them as Yara leaned in. She could see Brienne flush, her pale skin blotched with red. Yara didn’t think it was the cold. “Aye, it does get you hot.”

Yara pushed away from Brienne and they circled, looking for the next advantage. She could see Brienne’s breath quicken, although she said nothing. Yara figured Brienne’s brute strength would give her the advantage, but Yara was lighter and quicker and when Brienne struck, she parried easily. She spun and came for a direct strike as Brienne blocked and shoved her back with a strong shoulder. Yara stumbled with a laugh before she tackled low and flung the great woman onto her back. Yara was on her in a second, feeling Brienne’s chest heave underneath her as Yara put a blade to Brienne’s throat. She supposed Brienne held back - it would be bad form to put down visiting royalty, but Yara would take the victory anyway. She leaned down close enough to feel Brienne’s breath on her cheek. Yara whispered in her ear, “You would deny your queen this? I didn’t figure you a cold woman.”

And then Yara was standing over her, offering a hand to Brienne with a smug look stretched across her face. Brienne wordlessly took her hand and rose. “You’ll train your queen in the sword. You can’t have all the fun anymore.”

“I will discuss it with her grace,” Brienne said, trying to hide a smile. Yara was satisfied.

“I know other ways to make one’s blood hot,” Yara teased, still standing too close to Brienne. Brienne looked around, noticing the audience they had drawn. Yara wondered if anyone had ever been between her legs, the rigid and stodgy way she held herself. Her fun had, Yara slapped her shoulder and left her to sputter in front of the men.

As Yara was about to return to the great hall, thunder rolled through the skies and a great shadow bore down on Winterfell. Yara looked to the sky as Drogon circled above, back heavy with the Targaryen line. Three queens soon to be under one roof. The castle may not be large enough.


	18. Theon: Unsullied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grey Worm sets Theon a challenge.

Theon retreated to the courtyard to escape the parade of Northerners trying to catch a glimpse of a dragon and the queens of three kingdoms meeting in Winterfell. Jon looked as if he was pouting about a matter and left Daenerys’ side quickly. For someone who found out he was the rightful heir to the throne, he had a way of making it seem a curse. The smith, Gendry, and Ser Davos met him and approached with wide smiles. Theon decided to leave it be and kept moving. 

His feet took him close to the armory. He stopped as he saw Grey Worm practicing the longbow. Theon watched him draw and let loose, the arrow hitting the outer rim of the center’s eye. A noise of surprise escaped Theon. He was not sure why, but he envisioned the disciplined Unsullied soldier to be perfect in every arms. They all had that air about them. He hadn’t ever seen soldiers like the Unsullied. All once slaves, all gelded. None of them seemed to fear anything, and he could not fathom that stolen, mutilated children could be so calm. He envied them that. Theon could not recall a time without fear.  

“You think it was poor shot?” Grey Worm started, and he realized the soldier had heard Theon’s skeptical hum and took it as an insult. “You can shoot?”

Theon looked at the bow in his hand; it looked like the one he had grown up practicing with. “Used to be able to.” 

Grey Worm thrust the bow toward him. “Then you will show me.” 

“I haven’t held a bow in years,” Theon replied, not moving. He tried not to think of Tansy and the others he hunted, limping after his master. They all ran, but Ramsay and Myranda shot them all down.  _ Let me put one through her face. _

“Why is this?” Grey Worm asked, looking him over. Even the cold did not seem to bother him. Odd, for the weather in Meereen was far fairer than Winterfell. 

Theon raised his hands. He could shoot without his little finger, but he shook no matter how he tried to steady himself. He had no feeling in several digits, and the others were scarred from flaying or fingernails pried from their beds. He hadn’t drawn in years, hadn’t nocked an arrow or let it fly to feather an enemy. Grey Worm seemed to understand. 

“You will not know if you do not shoot.” 

He took the proffered bow, feeling the weight of it, the grain of the wood, the resistance of the flax string. He recalled from whom he trained and he swallowed down his guilt. Grey Worm handed him an arrow. Theon took a breath deep into his belly and recalled the first elk he had ever downed. The arrow had flown true and through the lungs. The beast had died quickly and easily; it suffered little. It had been one of the few moments of praise Lord Eddard had graced him with. Theon aligned himself, his feet somehow still remembering the stance. His body moved into a position as ingrained in him as Ramsay’s voice. He nocked an arrow without looking. He had not realized until that moment how much he had missed archery. Whenever his anger swelled like the sea, he could always count on the bow. He could feather arrow butts until his arms and back ached and his rage was spent. None in Winterfell could question his skill.

He tried to dismiss the worry that crept up in him as he set up his shot.  _ It’s not the same, the draw is harder. _ The movements, though, they still came naturally, rolling his hips, lowering his chest, and shifting the weight of the draw. But he was out of practice. He looked down the shaft of the arrow and tried to remember to breathe as he released. The arrow hit the edge of the target. He lowered the bow, staring. Some part of him raged at himself for allowing such a poor shot. Another asked what else could be expected? 

Grey Worm retrieved the arrow wordlessly and held it out to him. He only said, “Again.” 

Theon took it, frustration already welling up inside him. This was pointless. He wasn’t an archer anymore. He stared at the target, shaking in anger.  _ He took everything.  _ Relearning the sword, half as strong as he had been before he starved for years. Now, the bow,  _ his  _ bow, his skill. His reminder that he was ironborn, that a Greyjoy with a bow was a sight to see. 

“You are angry. Good,” Grey Worm said firmly. 

Theon turned to look at him, annoyance flashing across his face. “How is that good?” 

“You are not so beat you do not feel anger to the Master who cut you. We slayed the Masters when Daenerys Stormborn came.” 

“I was hundreds of miles away, running from my uncle when he was slain,” Theon spat bitterly. Once it had started, this fury snared his chest and crawled from his throat like a kraken from the deep. “I wanted to kill him. I wanted to see his eyes go dark as the gods took him. But I ran from him and I ran from my uncle. I kept running even as Yara was taken and the ironborn were slain before they could drown.”

His chest heaved with furious breath; it wasn’t at Ramsay he seethed, it was at his own cowardice. A coward who took Winterfell, who murdered those boys, who sucked Ramsey’s cock just to avoid the knife. He should have died with Robb at the Twins. He would have died a man whole, with honor. 

“You are angry you run instead of fight. Who killed the Master, your uncle?” Grey Worm prompted. 

“Sansa executed Ramsay,” he replied truthfully. She deserved the right to watch him die after what he did to her. “I killed my uncle.”

Grey Worm pointed at the arrow butt. “Then put an arrow through the eye of the Master. You no longer run.”

Theon met his eyes and he could not refuse. What Theon had endured was only a moment compared to what Grey Worm had suffered a lifetime. He had heard the Unsullied say that Grey Worm was the bravest of them.  

He fidgeted with the fletching before he set up his next shot, arrow readily nocked, but his shoulder faltered and Theon grunted at the crack he heard as he forced muscles into positions long ignored. Theon adjusted, remembering Lord Eddard’s praise.  _ You did well, Theon. Perhaps you will teach the men the bow if your aim stays true. _

He’d forgotten those words for a long while. He hadn’t been true for some time. Theon drew back the string, looking down the shaft at watery eyes he would never see again. 

His arrow flew, hitting the center of the target, out matching the Unsullied’s shot. Theon could not help that his lips pulled upward, a small flicker of pride dancing in his eyes. 

Grey Worm nodded, acknowledging his shot was the better. “You show me how to shoot bow like this.”

As Theon reached for a quiver, the color red caught his eye. Sansa looked down at him from the battlements; she had been watching him. For the first time since his body had been laid bare and stripped to nothing in the dungeons of the Dreadfort, Theon grinned widely up at her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Grey Worm also tells Theon to be as swift as a coursing river and as mysterious as the dark side of the moon. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I really appreciate it. This fic grew wildly out of hand and I just sort of let the chars take me around.


	19. Sansa: Queens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The three reigning Queens take time to relax and chat.

“You flew a baby on a dragon,” Sansa said in disbelief as Daenerys bounced her daughter on her knee. “You actually flew with a baby.”

“And why not? She’s going to have to learn to love her brothers,” Daenerys declared while making a smiling face at the infant. The morning had been spent discussing all the dreadfully tiresome details of supplies, stores, taxes, and restoring the kingdoms to their former glory. They broke from their advisors to rest and drink, to celebrate their victories as new rulers. “I almost had to bring Tyrion with me, she was so attached to him. I was so jealous I almost fed him to Drogon.” 

“You’d have a hard time finding a better Hand,” Yara drawled, more interested in her drink than the child. “Are you certain he won’t be more interested in taking your throne while you’re away. You were thought dead.” 

“No,” Daenerys replied with certainty. “I may have lost the North in my brief death, but I won’t cede another kingdom. Lord Tyrion does not have the same lust for power as others in his family. Will Ellaria Sand return to Dorne?”

Yara peered into the fire behind them, suddenly serious. “In time, perhaps. When she was found, her daughter’s body was rotting in the cell with her. My uncle killed her other girls.”

Disgust passed over the faces of the the remaining queens. Sansa offered, “We’ve all survived our own horrors. She’ll pull through.” 

“Aye. She’s already threatened to steal a horse to ‘get out of this frozen shit hole and back to where wine tastes sweeter than a Dornish cunt,’” Yara mocked, shrugging. “Her words.”

“Southerners,” Sansa shook her head. “Well, we might as well discuss the issue. All of us in Winterfell is asking for anyone left alive who wants to usurp the throne to plot against us. Three queens in one castle is a dangerous game.”

“The three of us like danger, it’s why we’re wearing the crowns,” Yara laughed.

“You just don’t want to talk of marrying off your little brother,” Daenerys teased, much of her focus on her little one. Sansa could not blame her. Death had claimed her for a time; every moment must seem like a gift after a blade in the heart. Would she miss this? Marrying Theon, she would have no children of her own to bounce on her knee. It was the calling of every lady to bear sons for their Houses. Of course, that’s because a lady had never ruled before.

“He’s not a maiden, but he’s more than old enough to be taken off my hands. Have you told Jon Snow yet?”

“He suspects already. I haven’t told him Theon agreed. And Theon hasn’t spoken to him either. I am sure there will be fantastic displays of grunting and threatening, so I’d really like to see it myself,” Sansa replied honestly, stealing a lemon cake from the table and savoring a small bite. She had gone too long without small pleasures. Seeing Theon’s smile again reminded her of that. “It may as well be soon, a small affair.”

“And will you be marrying your nephew? It’d be right traditional,” Yara mused. 

“Must I answer? I don’t know what to do with him.”

“You could still marry me,” Yara leaned in and kissed the babe on the cheek. The child smiled. Daenerys glanced at her with interest in her eye. Sansa wondered how Yara could be so open about her preference in women. Brienne had returned absolutely pink after their encounter. She supposed the ironborn did things differently, as they did in Dorne. 

“Please, do not tempt me. After the Lannisters, I’m not sure it would be wise. The religions of the day don’t approve and the people of Westeros are less open minded than in Essos. Tyrion thinks it is a terrible idea, and given what happened, I understand why.”

Sansa watched her closely. “What do you mean?” 

“The last time I turned to blood magic…” Daenerys trailed off, her face serious. “It is not that I do not appreciate that I am alive, but there are consequences. I have paid them before. What is the price for our lives? Jon left the battle to save me. He abandoned all of you.”

“You lords and ladies of Westeros spend more time worrying than enjoying life. No wonder my little brother can’t accept a good thing when it hits him over the head. Aye, he left the battle to save his Queen. You can’t fault a man for saving your life.”

“You only say that because you rode gallantly into battle to save everyone. They sing songs about you even in the North,” Sansa pointed out, leaning her chin on her hand in boredom. Jon and Daenerys already had a child outside of marriage, there were no true options left.  _ They should just stop dancing around each other and get on with it. Convention may as well have died with Cersei.  _

Yara raises her shoulders with a wide grin and leaned back in her chair. Had Sansa not seen her in battle, she would question if Yara was serious enough to lead. It was easy to see how she was Theon’s sister; she too seemed to smile when it was not altogether appropriate. She almost missed that recklessness in him, but he had retaken his bow. Perhaps that easy grin, the carefree jests and assuredness would return in time.   

Sansa looked at the Dragon Queen seriously. “Daenerys, the people will fall into line if you and Jon marry. It’s true, you will need to find a religious leader who supports the position, but you brought dragons back to Westeros and saved King’s Landing from certain death by an army of the dead. Jon united the people to fight for the cause. If anyone deserves to rule and be happy, it’s you two. With Theon and I joined and you and Jon, peace might finally settle upon Westeros again.” 

Daenerys stared into the eyes of her child, and Sansa knew they were Jon’s eyes. “Perhaps.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, especially something that's become so long! 
> 
> I mostly enjoy female characters interacting, something that doesn't happen enough in GoT.


	20. Sansa: The Ghost of Winterfell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa makes a decision... and reunites with a ghost.

Sansa stared up at the heart tree. She was going to marry, for the third time. The questions came in every direction once it was announced. Concerns from Northern Lords - what Stark would remain in Winterfell if she would not bear heirs? Bran assured them there would always be a Stark in Winterfell and it was hard not to believe him after his role in the war. The Night King would not have fallen if not for Bran. She tired of those questioning her and left them to bicker amongst themselves. Other, more practical questions followed her - what, when, where, who? A royal wedding should be a grand affair, but she remembered Joffrey’s wedding. A small ceremony? Well, she had that herself, here in the godswood where she was married to a man more cruel than even his father. Of the Seven, for her mother? The old gods, for her father? The Drowned God, for her husband to be?

“It’s a cold night, your grace,” the gruff voice of a soldier echoed in the trees. A member of the castle guard here to escort the Queen and keep her safe from harm? Hardly. 

“And colder still,” she said. “You heard that Jon was alive?”

“I heard you were getting married,” the soldier replied, standing at her side. “And that Jon was alive.”

“Everyone still thinks you’re dead, you know.”

“That was the point, wasn’t it?” 

“So that you could kill Cersei without having to worry about politics or brotherly loyalty getting in the way, yes. But you could have come back,” Sansa looked at the soldier with fury in her eyes. She did not believe her sister was truly dead, but she was angry she had disappeared this long without a word. Arya and her direwolf charged into battle at great risk, only to slip out during the chaos to head South. She could have ordered her sister to her death, charging into an army of the dead, but Arya had looked so certain it could be done. The way she fought against Brienne, Sansa chose to trust in her strength. “Was it you, in the end?”

“To kill Cersei? I wish it had been me, but she wouldn’t be captured. She’d poisoned herself with nightshade before I could slit her throat. Jaime Lannister howled like dying dog. It wasn’t as satisfying as killing Littlefinger.”

Sansa watched the soldier. It disturbed her, that her little sister was a faceless assassin, looking like a grown man in armor, but then, Sansa had fed her husband to dogs. No one was perfect.  “No, I suppose not.”

The wind whistled through the branches, snow falling on snow. “Don’t be angry. I needed time, after Jon fell. Nymeria… her pack came to her. I was saved by wolves, and they too fell.”

“Father would have been proud of you.”

“He would have thrashed me for it, though,” the soldier declared, a sad smile playing on his lips. 

“I could have used your help, you know,” Sansa pointed out, wrapping her cloak closer to her. 

“You seemed to have done just fine. And, I sent your future husband home to you,” Arya said in that strange soldier’s voice. 

“Theon? Oh. You were the farmer. That’s where you’ve been, just creeping along outside the walls of the castle? You’re so infuriating.”

“He’s not right in the head, but he loves you,” Arya acknowledged. “And that’s more than any other man has offered you.”

Sansa leaned down and picked up a scoop of snow. She formed it into a ball between her gloved hands and threw it square in the chest of the soldier. “He” rolled his eyes, but kept his stance, should anyone be watching. “How bad is it?”

“He appeared calling himself Reek. He was like a frightened child who talked about ‘Theon’ like he was a different person. Good worker, though,” Arya mused with a shrug. “It’s like he’s two people in there. Theon doesn’t know what’s going on when ‘Reek’ is around. He told me Theon doesn’t want to know. Are you sure that’s what you want to marry?”

“You are wearing the face of a soldier I’ve never seen before and I don’t want to know how you came to get it, and you think Theon’s the one confused about who he is?” Sansa gave her a stern look.

The soldier smiled. “It’s come up before. I made the choice to come home. You sent me to kill Cersei. You didn’t even tell Jon.”

“Are you angry with me? You went.” 

“No. I’ve spent years wanting to kill Cersei. But the list is done. War is done. What am I to do now?”

“Become a knight, serve the North,” Sansa urged.  _ Don’t disappear again _ , she thought. “What we lived through, what all of us lived through, none of us can sleep at night, Arya. None of us know what we are now.”

“You’re a Queen.”

“And I’m marrying a eunuch, who was our child prisoner and betrayed our brother, because he’s the only one I can stand to let touch me without wanting to be sick. And apparently, he’s two people. Do you really think I know what I’m doing any better than anyone else?” she asked desperately. 

The soldier kicked the snow at his feet. “If anyone can help him, it’s you. But do you love him?”

“I don’t know,” Sansa confessed. 

“If I slit his throat tonight in his sleep, what would you do?” 

Sansa’s eyes went wide, her heart pounding at the thought. “You can’t.”  

“Sounds like you like him well enough,” the soldier mumbled. Sansa gave Arya a dirty look. “What sort of wedding will you have?”

“That’s what I came here to figure out. I just want to do it without anyone seeing. I don’t even want a ceremony. I just want a marriage that isn’t a show or pretense to putting sons in my belly.”

“So do that,” the soldier said resolutely, as if it had been decided. “All you need is someone to present you to the gods, a maester to record it.”

“Without telling anyone else?” Sansa stared for a moment, considering. 

“No one at all,” said the soldier.

“Then bring Theon and Maester Samwell,” Sansa breathed. She could do this. It was madness, but she could live with this. “Let’s do it now.”

“Aye, your grace,” the soldier laughed and bowed low before he disappeared into the night. Sansa returned her gaze to the great tree. The Boltons were dead. She was the Lady of Winterfell, the Queen in the North. These were her lands, her trees, her right to choose her own path.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I appreciate your comments, as well. :)


	21. Jon: Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon confronts Daenerys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was feeling bummed about continuing so I decided to rework these chapters to incorporate feedback and condensed two into one. Yara and Dany is going to move to a second chapter of my fic Of Blood, which will probably have 3 chapters total. Theonsa is still the priority and that's good for me because I find some other chars harder to write. XD;
> 
> Thank you for reading! And happy holidays!

He heard their laughter before he saw them. Daenerys and Yara Greyjoy sat before the fire in the Great Hall, his daughter passed begrudgingly to Missandei and a wet nurse for an evening meal. _His_ daughter, the thought still unsettled him. Unsullied soldiers attended the door while the ironborn drank and feasted from the same table. 

“Let them have a drink, at least, they have to find some sense of entertainment in peace,” Greyjoy laughed, her feet on the table and a drink ever in her hand, motioning toward the Unsullied. The ironborn laughed with her. 

“When not on patrol I have heard very interesting stories of their entertainment, and Black Mouse tells quite a joke, but my rule is not so… informal, as yours. Men once tried to murder me in my crib,” Daenerys said from behind her silver goblet. “It’s not a risk I will take with all of us here.”

“We’re ironborn, our blood runs hot. I forbade my men their salt wives. It’s too bad the brothel is still in repair; a drunken brawl is the best way to get these hard men soft,” Greyjoy said with a grin, elbowing her nearest soldier. A curious glance passed between some of the soldiers while others raised their pints, Jon took note.

He shook his head and strode into the hall, his furs too warm with the fires burning. “I need to speak with you,” he addressed Daenerys. He shifted to Yara and her men, “Alone.”

Daenerys turned and nodded to the Unsullied, who took their leave with Missandei and the wet nurse. Greyjoy seemed to consider before saying, “Leave us.”

She did not move, but watched as her men left, taking another drink. Greyjoy had made it known before she was not intimidated by the Stark home; he sensed her resentment toward the place her brother had grown. “Unlike my brother, I don’t take orders from the wolves in Winterfell.”

They were interrupted as a Stark guard stalked through the room, not looking or acknowledging any of them. Then, the soldier stared oddly at Jon for a moment with a smile and carried on. The three of them shared a look, concerned by the lack of respect paid them. 

“Yara?” he heard Theon’s voice from the entryway. “Could I speak with you?”

When Jon looked again, the soldier was already gone. Yara Greyjoy sighed, abandoning her mug and rising to her feet. She leaned to whisper something in Daenerys’ ear, who laughed lightly and waved her away. Daenerys stood and gazed impassively at him before turning to the fire. The Greyjoys disappeared into the corridor, leaving them alone.

Daenerys stared into the brightly dancing flames, her back to him. He moved to her and took Daenerys’ arm. She rounded on him with cold eyes. He pulled her close, meeting her gaze, “Enough of this. We haven’t had a word since the flight back to Winterfell.” 

“If you dislike my temperament, then go,” she replied, breaking their stare and returning to the light. 

“If you wanted to be alone, you could have left me to die in the forest. But you didn’t.” He recalled the smell of smoke as it burned in his lungs, the sound of a woman trying to cease her tears, and with eyes blurred from another brush with death, she came into focus. Daenerys, in shock, clutching his hand, her fine cloaks pulled back, her silver hair dark with ash, the other hand covering her heart. He could see the wound, too much like his own. The battle, Daenerys’ falling to the earth, slaying the captain not before a sickle tore deep into his side. The Red Witch’s touch on his face after he collapsed to the ground, a dragon’s pained roar. She had looked at him with unseeing eyes. _Drogon flew; he did not know me. What did you do?_

She laced her fingers together in front of her, facing him. “Do you think I wish you dead?”

“Been starting to wonder,” he said, taking a step toward her. Things had not been the same since his trueborn name was known, and King’s Landing had not gone as to plan. Their daughter had cried, wailing for Tyrion or her nurse. When she was placed in Daenerys’ arms, the babe would not look at her. But she had smiled at Jon. He was at a loss with her, fragile and small. He wielded arms, slayed men, forged battle, but this little child looked at him for care. He had meant to be a brother of the Night’s Watch, never to marry, but that man died with a knife in his heart. He hadn’t had the time to sort what kind of man that made him now.

When Daenerys made her claim known, the rebuke from Tyrion’s counsel was swift, including from Jaime Lannister, who defended his brother. It had been Jon who calmed him, and his birthright became the center of all debate. A birthright he hardly believed himself. This woman he had lain with, created life with, and Bran had shattered the stories they’d been telling themselves all their lives. Daenerys was not the last Targaryen; she didn’t have the rightful claim to the Iron Throne. He was still half Stark; but his aunt was his mother and his lover was his aunt. Lord Eddard had always remained loyal to his lady, the one who hated what his presence meant every day he breathed. He wasn’t a bastard. He was the heir to the throne they’d all gone to war over, that good men died for. His fathers, the both of them.

“No, I don’t,” she said quietly. His thoughts were heavy as he looked to her for answers. As if they hadn’t fought through the seven hells for everything, they had to finally settle his birthright. Even Tyrion denounced their match, thinking it would not be met well in the south. “I had not expected to ever find myself with child again. You know what the witch who killed my husband said. And then our daughter came, she fed from my breast, and she had your eyes. Yet, my husband did not return from the dead. The sun still does not set in the east. I had to leave her for the battle and when I looked and saw metal sticking from my chest, I thought I was the worst mother to have ever let her go. I trusted in dark magic to save my husband and paid with my child’s life. You trusted in dark magic to bring back my life. My breast carries no milk for her. She cries all night, and nothing would soothe her but a wet nurse.”

“And what other choice did we have? Would you rather be dead?” he demanded, his anger flaring. His memory was clouded under the haze of pain, the blood spilling from his side and the sight of Daenerys unmoving. Jon remembered clutching the Red Woman, trying to stand. She had rallied soldiers defending the weaponless to help her, to save the queen and king. He could hear nothing over the dragons’ screams, not the clash of swords or horses, but he heard, _Your role is not yet over, Jon Snow, and neither yet is hers, so says the Lord of Light._ He knew what she meant to do and he assented. When he woke, the Red Woman was gone, as was the dragon. They'd been left in the middle of a forest, Daenerys confused and brought back to life, he half dead himself. Daenerys had mended him the best she could with her dress cloak.

“It is the price I will pay to be here,” she said bitterly as she placed her hands on the back of a high chair. He knew motherhood had not begun the way she wanted, and he was sorry he could not change that fact for her. “I had a vision once, of approaching the Iron Throne. The ceiling had been burnt, just as it is now, and snow fell upon the throne. My throne. I almost touched it, but then I walked and I saw them, my dead husband and child. I saw them and left them behind.”

He watched her seriously. A vision of snow on the throne; she meant him and he knew it. He knew it the way he knew too many eyes turned to him when leaders fell and armies came. He was good at killing, that was certain. War. Never asked for it, but it rested on his shoulders all the same, the way it did hers.

She approached him and laid a gentle hand on his face. Daenerys always felt warm, no matter the wind and snow. He saw her tears after her dragon fell, how hot her small hand had felt in his. “I have always relied on Daenerys Targaryen to get exactly what I wanted because I could not rely on anyone else. I have killed too many men to count to be here, and I have left men who loved me to be here. And now, I know that I am being asked to rely on you. I once called him my sun and stars and I was the moon of his life, and I left him. What will you be in my sky?”

“I haven’t ever really been one with words. I don’t have the answers. But I’ve not ever seen you run. We’ve all lost in our time,” he paused. _Ygritte._ When she burned, he couldn’t stomach to watch. He turned his back on her. When Daenerys was struck in the heart, he saw an arrow, not a sword, and he could not stand by again. “You’ll just have to trust me, like you've done before.”

“How do I know you won’t betray me?” she breathed, and her eyes held the pain of someone who’s seen too much death, who’s been betrayed, who’s been left behind, alone. He knew betrayal, by his own brothers. He hung a child for it. After the wars, no one was the same person as before. _Your name is Aegon Targaryen._ And he, too, had been left alone.

“You don’t.” He took her hand from his face and held it to his heart. “But you know how I came to be here. We both took steel to the heart. If I wanted to betray you for the throne, you wouldn’t be here now to doubt me.” 

“What man has ever turned down power to give it to a woman?” she prompted, trying desperately to show nothing on her face.

“Is it really so hard believe that it could be shared?” he answered with a question of his own. She tried to move away, but he held her hand still and pulled her into his arms. She leaned against him, her hands pressing against his chest. “I didn’t ask anyone to bring me back from the dead, just as I didn’t ask my father to name me a Snow. But here we are.”

“I will not be your lesser,” she stated seriously, fingers curling against him.

“Then be my equal,” he told her as he raised her chin to meet his eye. “We could do this together. Our daughter, she’ll come to know you again, as Drogon did. We could take the throne together.”

He had never chased a woman before. Ygritte needled him, in her own way, until he could no longer ignore her. Daenerys wasn’t the only one who had to leave someone behind for war, and Jon was tired of burning the bodies of the dead. This was a woman who would not burn. 

She lifted her hand to his face again, brushing her thumb across his cheek, her violet eyes searching his. Daenerys replied, “Together.”

A sudden cough interrupted them. It was Sam. Brienne stood behind him with Bran. “Sorry to interrupt this… hopefully lovely moment, but you’ll want to come to the godswood for this.”


	22. Sansa: Weddings and Revivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa begs the blessings of the gods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I took a few days to reconsider and redid the last two chapters (into just one), but not much has changed here.

“How did telling no one mean tell everyone?” asked Sansa, watching a small group approach. Arya, still donning the appearance of a guard, looked equally bemused. 

“I really did only get the two.”

Sansa could barely make out who was approaching. “Then you might as well show yourself for who you are.”

“You won’t be jealous that my sudden return to life will steal all the attention away from your wedding? By the gods, you have changed.”

“We all have to grow up someday,” Sansa responded, smoothing her skirts. If anyone else suddenly returned from the dead, the North may create great stories of conspiracy. The moon peeked out from behind the clouds and smiled down on them, as if in on the joke. “Take off that ridiculous face, I can’t take you seriously like that.”

“You rarely ever took me seriously,” Arya declared, her voice suddenly hers again. “Get ready.”

Lanterns in hand, a small group approached. She could first make out Yara Greyjoy; it was not a surprise that Theon might insist she be here. In addition, Maester Samwell, Theon, and Brienne pushing Bran appeared. There was more movement in the dark and Sansa realized that Jon and Daenerys trailed behind them. She double checked to make sure Lord Glover and Lady Mormont weren’t also accompanying them. 

As they approached, they all paused to see who stood at Sansa’s side, hands placed carefully behind her back. In shock, none said anything. A few moments later, Jon stopped walking when he spotted Arya. 

“Hello, Jon,” she said before running and throwing her arms around him. He held her close, wrapping her in his arms as if she might disappear again. 

“I thought you were dead,” he breathed as he let her go to look her over. His dark eyes were wide, taking in his little sister who was his cousin.

She smiled up at him. “I thought you were, too.”

“Lady Arya,” whispered Brienne. She looked at Arya as if she was a ghost. “How?”

Sansa was about to reveal the truth, that she had sent Arya to kill Cersei and kept it from them all. Bran, excepted. But Arya quickly said, “I didn’t really go to fight the dead. I had to fight through them, of course, but I went to kill Cersei on my own. I’m sorry I didn’t tell anyone, but I didn’t want anyone to talk me out of it. I needed time, when I thought Jon was gone. But then I heard you were alive.” 

The lie rolled so easily from her tongue, Sansa wondered if anyone could detect it. Brienne smiled at her, surely grateful she had not failed in her duties after all. “Ser Clegane will be pleased to see you.”

“The Hound? He’s here?” Arya questioned, looking quickly at Sansa.

“He came back with Brienne. He saved my life in King’s Landing once, I couldn’t turn him away.”

Maester Samwell smiled and japed to Jon, “Don’t tell Gendry, he might fall in love.”

“Did you say Gendry?” asked Arya, an unreadable expression on her face. “Gendry, the smith. You know him?”

“Aye,” replied Jon, uncertain how Arya seemed to know him as well. “He’s Robert Baratheon’s son. He now smiths for the court in King’s Landing after he fought alongside us in the wars, crafted the best damn weapons we had. Tyrion made him a lord for his service, but he’s the best in Westeros. Sam brought him along, trying to give him a more proper education. And I suspect to see Ser Davos again.”

Suddenly Arya was laughing madly, as if she couldn’t believe the words coming out of Jon’s mouth. The group gave her a queer look and she shook her head. Sansa still found her sister strange. All Arya would say is, “We’ve met.” 

They all crowded around Arya, questions falling from their mouths in great number. All but Theon, who finished a conversation with his sister, Queen Yara. “We’ll discuss it later, Theon.”

Sansa took his arm as his sister introduced herself to Arya. He stared at her suddenly, his eyes asking her if she was sure this is what she wanted. “It was Arya’s idea. I’m ready. Aren’t you?”

He looked into her eyes for a moment before he slowly nodded. “You knew the whole time, that Arya was alive?”

Sansa sighed. “How did you know?”

“You’re the only one who doesn’t look like they’ve seen a ghost,” he replied honestly, glancing down to notice her arm in his. 

“It was me. I sent Arya to kill Cersei. We told no one,” Sansa said. Cersei might as well as have become the Mad King all over again. Cersei betrayed their agreement. It was no surprise to her. She had grown under Cersei’s care, her unwavering devotion to her mad son and her bitter desire to see the Lannisters on the throne. It was infuriating to think it all could have been avoided had Baelish been found out. She shuddered to think of him trying to worm his way into her bed even after selling her to Ramsay. 

“Sansa,” Theon started seriously, “you don’t have to do this here. Are you sure?”

She looked at him and she could almost see the night he gave her away to Ramsay. Skeletal, pale, a servant in a lord’s clothes. He could barely speak. She remembered the way her heart pounded in her ears as she made the decision to wed. The sickening smirk on Ramsay’s face set her blood to ice. She had a thought of murdering Roose Bolton where he stood. 

Sansa focused back on Theon’s face, a look of concern in his blue eyes. He was Ramsay’s prisoner far longer than she had been. She still did not know what he endured, aside from the obvious. He had even forgotten who he was. Sansa was touched; even now, he was thinking of her. She brought her gloved hand to his face and he did not flinch. “I’m sure. Let’s take back our home.” 

He peered at her with such intense eyes that she drew in an unneeded breath, and Theon gave a single, firm nod.

The group around Arya parted and she approached them. “Let’s begin.”

As everyone moved into position before the heart tree, she heard Arya say to Theon, “You don’t recognize me?”

Theon misunderstood, hesitation in his voice. “Arya Underfoot, I know you.” 

“I told you the blood of Stark would return to Winterfell, didn’t I?” Arya said with a coy smile. Realization washed over Theon’s face, as did confusion. 

“But…” he started and Sansa felt worry spread in her belly. He began to look lost in thought, his eyes darting from side to side as if seeing something that wasn’t there. His breath quickened. “But how? You’re… you’re the ghost. The ghost I saw.”

No one else seemed to notice, even Arya had already walked away. They lit the lanterns that lined the path, as Theon muttered to himself. Sansa quickly grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. “Theon. Theon! Look at me. You’re in the godswood, with me. Theon.”

After a moment, he met her gaze. He swallowed, “I saw her. Arya. I saw her before. I remember.”

“I know. She told me she met you when you disappeared those three days. She sent you back. I’ll explain it later. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but I’ll tell you when we’re not  _ here _ .”

He nodded and smiled in assurance. She released the breath she didn’t know she held. She took his arm again and they walked together to stand before Arya, Bran and Jon. The others took to the sides, as she remembered from her last wedding.  _ This is my family. Jon, Arya, Bran. They’re the ones here.  _ Theon shared a look with his sister. 

Sansa was grateful she did not have to worry about being given away. She had thought to ask Jon, but Sansa was a Queen, no longer a maiden flowered and grown. She would not be wrapped in a Greyjoy cloak; she was a Stark. 

Arya stepped forward. “Who comes before the Old Gods this night?”

Sansa raised her head, trying to steady her breathing, slow her heart as it beat wildly in her chest.  “Sansa, of House Stark. I come to beg the blessings of the gods, to be wed.” 

“Who comes to join her?” asked Bran. 

“Theon,” he said, his voice clear and steady, and Sansa closed her eyes. If he spoke that way always, she could drown in that voice in peace. “Of House Greyjoy.” 

Jon smiled at her. “Queen Sansa, will you take this man?”

Theon stood at her side, not before her, no smirk that she would later learn meant forthcoming pain. Before her stood only the people she loved most in the world, her family. Everything that had begun when Robert Baratheon rode to Winterfell was finally over. This was her home. These were her people, her pack. Winter had come and it would come again, but it did not feel so cold. 

Sansa returned his smile, looking at Theon only to find his eyes already on her. “I take this man.” 

He took her hand in his and they kneeled together before the heart tree, a moment of silence passing over those gathered. She asked the gods to let peace last, to let it finally find her and find him.

When they rose, it was done. The way he looked at her, the storms tempered when she was near, she had never seen in the eyes of another for only her.  _ This marriage, it will be the one to last,  _ she determined. Hand in hand, they walked toward the castle together.  


	23. Theon: Naked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Left to their wedding night, Sansa and Theon have ghosts to face.

He listened to the crunch in the snow as the others followed behind them, peeling off toward their respective chambers with good wishes given. Sansa now had his arm and he glanced at her to ensure that he would not wake from a dream in the kennels or on the saltire. He recalled her last wedding night and tried to let the images fall behind them to the snow. She had refused to touch him; now they were wed. She had done so in front of her family, made her mind known before the North. The fires cast dancing shadows on her face as they entered the castle, and he was struck by how much she’d grown from the little girl minding her sewing. 

“You’re staring,” she laughed. He opened his mouth to reply when he heard Jon’s voice behind him. 

“A word?” Jon asked, and Theon knew it was not with Sansa he meant to speak. 

She released him and whispered that she would wait for him down the hall. He thought he saw her roll her eyes before she went. Jon and Theon watched her go. He then found himself against the stone wall, Jon’s fist wrapped around his collar, the wind knocked out of him. He forced himself to meet Jon’s cold stare. 

“I might have forgiven you, but I haven’t forgotten. If you betray her,” Jon’s voice was low, dangerous. Theon heard the threat before he spoke it. “There’s nothing in this world that will save you from me.” 

_What could he do that hasn’t been done?_ Theon mused, but he looked seriously at Jon. He couldn’t know, he couldn’t possibly know what it had meant to leap from the wall with Sansa, to return himself to the Boltons so she might escape. Jon had become a man of war, a leader, honest to a fault. He was every bit the son Lord Eddard had hoped to shape. He couldn’t fathom men like Ramsay. There were no other men like Ramsay. He hoped. Theon replied with a steady voice, certain, “I won’t.” 

Jon held his gaze for another moment, dark eyes boring into him, before releasing Theon and departing without a word, his black winter pelts making him appear larger than any man should. Theon held against the wall until he had gone. He supposed Jon held his tongue until after the ceremony for Sansa’s benefit; she probably argued with him about it already. He could not fault Jon; Theon was a known oathbreaker, and he agreed with the Northern lords that he was not worthy of their Queen. He closed his eyes and let out a breath. This was Sansa’s choice, his queen. The man who thought he knew better than any woman died the day Winterfell burned.

It was not hard to find her. She had waited only around the nearest corner, listening in. _Now it’s the women who protect me_ , he thought grimly. It had been his duty as an honorable lord to keep them safe, away from war and that which would sully their virtue, but then again, it had often been Theon himself who relished in slipping his hands beneath their good names and stealing what he could. As they walked toward her chambers, the mood between them grew darker, heavier, as if a monstrous shadow threatened to strangle them both. When they stepped inside her room, he swore he could touch it. 

Sansa turned to him, her red hair pulled into delicate braids that made her appear younger than her years. He stood by the door, uncertain of what to do, so he stared at floor. Shame scratched at his throat and itched at his scarred body. He felt painfully aware of what he lacked. He started, “I… Shall I leave you for the night, my Queen?”

Something flashed across her face and she stood frozen. He watched her breast rise and fall more quickly than before. She seemed both hurt and relieved at once, and Theon understood that they were not alone in the room. He could feel Ramsay seared into his skin, mixed in his blood, and Sansa could not help but think of sex as a gruesome act, carved out of pink and delicate flesh, pried out of a person as they prayed for mercy or death. As he now did. 

“No,” Sansa said quietly. With hesitancy, she closed the door and approached him. He resisted the urge to step back and he had not been so close to her since the day he came to Winterfell and pulled her into an embrace. She stood close to him and seemed to carefully choose each breath and movement. “Stay.” 

He could only nod. The silence seemed to pulse with mood.

“We should drink,” she said quickly, and retreated to pour two glasses. “A toast to our wedding.”

“Sansa…” he whispered, gently taking her hand. She flinched at his touch and he released her. “I know.” 

“Yes, you know,” the edge in her voice clear, “I recall you watching.”

Theon could not look at her. Guilt rose in him in great waves and he repeated his name so he wouldn’t get lost. Theon. Yes, he had watched. It would have been worse for her if he didn’t. _That’s not why you watched, you cowardly cunt._ Theon offered, “I’m sorry.”

Sansa drank from a silver goblet, long and fast. “No, I am. You were just as much a prisoner as I was. More so.” 

Sansa sighed and placed her drink on the table. His sat untouched. It was now Sansa who took his hand. She touched each of his fingers, even the one that was no longer there. She delicately traced each scar. He did not move, uncertain. He didn’t like others seeing this hand; it was his reminder from Ramsay to behave. He cut the others but would not grant him the mercy of removing them whole. Sansa asked, “How did it start?”

Theon thought of sweat and blood, smoke and thirst. The leather cut into his wrists, the saltire scratched him constantly. He looked at the wine goblet, taking in its color, its shape. He didn’t want to get lost tonight, nor did he wish to answer. But Sansa had not that luxury of privacy in her prison. Theon had seen every degrading act that night, heard every cry, every scream, every plea for mercy. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. Theon showed her his other hand, the one with oddly shaped nails. “They tied me to a cross and cut them away.”

“They?” she asked, tenderly playing with his fingers. 

Theon watched her closely. “Yes, the Bolton soldiers. I didn’t know where I was. Ramsay… he told me Yara sent him to free me, that he was from Salt Cliff and saw me taken from the islands as a boy. He set me free, gave me a horse. But he hunted me, he hunted me and caught me and put me back where I belonged.”

“Theon,” Sansa replied, her hands on his face. He didn’t understand the pain in her voice. “You don’t belong there.” 

He had told himself he was done spilling salt for Ramsay when he had retaken his bow, but the tears sprang from someplace too deep to quell. She had once said she wanted to do what Ramsay had done to him. Every pardon he heard, every chance he was given… He no longer knew what to think. 

She kissed him then, lightly, slowly. Her lips were softer than the fine silks she wore and he had forgotten what a woman’s kiss felt like. It was in his nature to lean in, recalling how once this act alone would have woken the passions in his loins. Now, he chased the memory of a feeling, deepening the kiss and parting his lips to welcome her. _This is Sansa, not a brothel whore_ , a part of him chastised, and he worried he had acted improper. Sansa’s hands had sneaked into his hair, drawing him closer and he felt her tongue cautiously brush his teeth. His hands fell to her waist and he pressed against her, her breasts flush against him. As a soft moan escaped her throat, he gently bit her bottom lip. He lost himself in her touch, tugging at his hair, the rise and fall of her chest, and he could not deny that even in this sorry state, his manhood ripped away, that he lusted for her. He ran his fingers through her hair red as autumn and wanted. 

As her fingers touched his throat, a different image came to him, an unwanted picture. He felt Ramsay’s hands tightening around his neck, choking off his air as he bit Theon’s lip. He wouldn’t take him without pain, there was always pain, even when he was Ramsay’s woman for the night. Especially then. Theon gasped and pulled back, his hands brushing against her stomach as he went, causing Sansa to push him away in desperation, her arms wrapped protectively there. They both stood panting, staring at each other. The weight of the silence might crush him. 

“I can’t,” Sansa cried then, bent at the waist. “I still feel what he did to me.”

His shoulders shook. “As do I.”

“You don’t know what this is like,” she spat. “Even after I fed him to dogs, I could still feel it. He left a part of himself there to grow.”

Theon felt nauseous. It was perhaps the one violation Theon truly could not know. “Sansa…”

“It never lived, but I felt it all the same.” He hated to see her cry. He had seen her cry too many times already. His breath came quick and he did not know what to do. 

“I… I’ve never shown anyone,” he said, “What he did. Not anyone, not since I escaped.”

She eyed him carefully, her arms still holding herself. Sansa sat on the bed lined with furs, as if she were dizzy and could no longer stand. She breathed deep and waited for him to continue. 

Theon faltered, but removed his winter cloak, unlacing his doublet underneath. She merely watched, so he continued until he plucked his undershirt from his body. Her eyes went wide as the fire light shown harshly on his uncovered skin. He had only one nipple left, the other a messy constellation of whitened, raised scar tissue. He noticed her eyes settle on the Bolton cross on his arm, before she saw the way Ramsay had peeled long strips of skin from his stomach. Other places featured only cut marks, some shallow, some not. His arms were lined with cuts and healed lashes from the whip. 

Sansa swallowed. “Turn around.” 

He complied, slowly showing her his back. He slept on his stomach for weeks after every lashing, but he felt his back fared better. He turned again to face her and carefully drew near her. Sansa reached out to him with hesitation, stopping just shy of touching him, as if afraid of what might happen. “This… this he did to me.”

“He wanted me to know you better,” he murmured. Theon almost shared what else Ramsay liked to do, but he could not bring himself to say the words. Sansa had already guessed the truth.

“Did he also… touch you as he touched me?”

“...Long before you came,” Theon admitted, his voice above a whisper. Myranda was never jealous of her lover’s pet; she always played, too, and it would be her who shared Ramsay’s bed and Theon who licked his wounds with the hounds.

She stared openly at him, at the wrecked body before her, and she brushed a scar with such a light touch, he shivered. Her fingers rested at the top of his breeches and she pulled in shaking breaths. “May I?”

Every alarm in his body screamed and he tried not to indulge the panic that swelled with each passing moment. _She asked. She asked. No one asks._

He squeezed his eyes shut. How many times had he torn a woman’s gown undressing her quickly so he could shove her against a wall and fuck her from behind? Women were pretty to look at, their breasts always fun to twist and squeeze, but they were nothing more than a place to plant his dripping prick, to relieve himself, to feel powerful when he had no power at all. _But she asked. Let her._

He nodded and watched as her pale fingers nimbly tugged the laces loose, and when she had undone them, she carefully took down his breeches, lowering them inch by inch until they fell to the floor and he obediently removed his boots so he could step out of them. 

Theon did not blame her for the frightened, shocked noise that left her. Where other man had the pride of their families, he had long, puckered scars in every direction. It should send fear into the heart of any who saw it. After all, it was the shameful price paid by rapers for a reason. It was a punishment meant to humiliate and Theon vouched for its effectiveness. Only talking to Grey Worm made any difference. His cheeks flushed red as she saw him, all that was left of him. She likely regretted her decision to wed such a disgraceful creature. 

“Theon,” she whispered, tears again in her eyes. She rose suddenly and he took a step back. She persisted, wrapping her arms around his middle and leaning her face against his shoulder. “Theon.”

He stood unmoving, unable to believe what was happening. Lord Stark’s noble daughter embracing whatever had crawled out of the Dreadfort dungeons. But the embrace was short as she began to undo the front lacing that held up her dress. She turned and said, “Help me.” 

With shaking hands, he obeyed, unlacing her dress and loosening down to her waist. She faced him again and shimmied out of the fur and cloth that covered her. Sansa stood before him, naked, not even a shift beneath. As she bent carefully to free herself of stockings and boots, he could not help but stare. She was shapely, of course, she was her mother’s daughter. Her breasts not large, but pert and every curve was smooth and perfect - or it had once been. His heart felt doused in ice water as he saw the scars that lined her stomach, her breasts, her thighs. Ramsay had not matched every cut; he could not share every intimacy with his Reek. Her belly had taken the worst of it, and he felt rage rise in him, the way it had when he thought he’d lost the bow, but this rage was deeper, stronger, and he wanted to tear a man limb from limb, drown him slowly on the beaches of Pyke. But Sansa had already done this; she had made Ramsay suffer for the both of them. 

She looked at him, the first time he had seen her appear a shy maiden since her youth. Sansa stood with her thighs pressed together, an arm across her breasts. “Aren’t we an ugly pair?” 

“You’re beautiful,” he said sincerely, enthralled by her. Every mark showed the battles she survived, the pain she had endured and she was the most lovely woman he had ever seen. Her blue eyes shown in the light and Theon thought he could never love another. He thought of Robb, the same Tully eyes he shared with his sister, and he promised his brother he would make it right. He took her pale hand in his and kissed the soft skin there. “My Queen.” 

He found himself led to her bed and they laid, their naked, scarred bodies pressed tightly together atop the wolf pelts, fit together as though they were made that way. It was the first night in a long time he allowed himself to sleep in a bed. She drew his arm over her waist and laced her fingers with his. “Stay with me.”

“Forever,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder that I redid the last two chapters to address some feedback. Constructive criticism is always welcome, trolls will not be fed. 
> 
> So it was a cuddly wedding night. Who doesn't like spoons? They're still working on the physical intimacy part. Sansa, one day you will make a great top, I believe in you, girl. 
> 
> Happy Holidays! And thanks for reading, as always.


	24. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look at everyone's morning in Winterfell: sex, reunions, and treason. 
> 
> This chapter contains porn and Sandor Clegane's filthy mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a 5 hour flight and this happened. It's a bit different, I hope it works. Thanks for reading!

Just after sunrise, Winterfell

_Sansa & Theon _

“Sansa?” a voice, worried, sounded in her ear. An arm was around her, a warm body behind her. Panic seized her and she felt as frozen as men lost to the North’s harsh winters, but the night’s memories came to her slowly. She had taken Theon to her bed after their wedding in the godswood.

“Just a bad dream,” she mumbled, shifting to face him, her fingers lost in her mess of red hair. She must have called out in her sleep; she dreamt of Ramsay. She often did. Theon’s storm blue eyes were on her, his tawny curls had fallen in his face. She brushed them back, happy to let the dream fade. She preferred waking to sea storm eyes than those like frozen rivers and malice. “Did you sleep?”

“Some,” he replied. She didn’t believe him any more than he believed it was just a bad dream. He caressed her cheek with his thumb; Sansa was surprised to find it wet. She sat up, looking to the skies. It was still early. This was the first time she had invited a man into her bed, woken to the morning sun with him, and although nothing had happened, she felt something begin to hum in her stomach remembering their kiss, his lean body under the ice white marks, the heat from his touch. Her cheeks felt hot and she felt bold. Sansa kicked off a pelt and straddled him, settling to sit on his hips. Her cheeks burned hotter as she thought of her womanhood set against him. She could not tell him her relief that nothing rose beneath her. He had spent the night and although she felt a stupid child to think it, there were no terrors. She had fallen to sleep easier than she had in months.

Theon stared up at her, his mouth hanging open. “Sansa?”

“I want to touch you,” she said simply and he licked his lips cautiously. She had always noticed that Theon was handsome; even in the days he swaggered about, bow in hand, cocky grin on his face, whispering in the ear of the nearest serving girl. Even now, his blue eyes, strong jaw, and high cheekbones made him a striking figure in the North. Her fingers danced over his chest and she could feel the muscle there, not quite like she remembered when she had accidentally glimpsed Theon and her brothers soaking in the godswood hot springs. She smiled when she noticed him shiver as she ghosted across his stomach. A line of dark curls disappeared beneath her. She placed her palms at his waist and ran them from belly to the curve of his neck as she leaned down to kiss him. He met her, more hungrily than before, as if they had been testing the other through the night, and she felt his fingers find the back of her head, pulling her deeper into the kiss. He moved quickly and she found herself sitting in his lap and she grasped his shoulders, breaking the kiss to look at him. Her breath came fast and she felt tension building between her legs despite herself. “What would you do with a woman, before?”

“Nothing I would do to you,” he deflected.

Sansa frowned. She was a Stark. Although she had denied him his lord’s right to her body, it did not mean she was easy to break. “Why not?”

He seemed to consider his words carefully, “I didn’t care for them… or their pleasure. I cared about my own.”

“And you care about mine?”

He peered into her eyes and for a moment she thought he might confess his love for her. She wondered if Theon Greyjoy had ever told a woman not his own mother such words. Doubtful of himself, he swallowed. “I do.”

“Show me,” she whispered in a shaking voice, uncertain if she knew what she was doing, too curious to stop. She brought his hands to her hips, running them to her waist. She felt on the edge of danger, uncertain if she would plunge or fly. “How do you show a woman you care for her pleasure?”

He let his hands continue, making light trails up her back and down, settling on the curve of her behind in long caresses. Prickling cold climbed up her flesh as he lightly touched her breast, taking her mound into his palm, ever gentle and slow. As he rolled her pink nub between his thumb and forefinger, he leaned in to her, waiting for her to meet his lips, and she did with a shuddering sigh. His wet lips found her cheek, her jaw, her neck and as his teeth brushed her tenderly, her hands curled in his hair. She felt her need between them and as she shifted slightly she could feel she had become wet and little bolts of pleasure shot through her womb.

Theon was next to her ear then, kissing and running his tongue along the curves. For such emboldened behavior and experience in bedding women, he almost seemed shy, fearful. His breath tickled against her as he asked, “May I kiss you, down below?”

_Jon & Daenerys _

“Alright,” he murmured against Daenerys’ neck, his fingers between her legs, teasing across her curls and glancing over her shapely thighs. She guided him up to kiss her, opening wider to him. Jon smiled against her lips. It had been too long.

Humming with need and demanding, Daenerys grabbed his wrist and pressed his hand across her mound, a soft moan coming from her throat. He dipped his fingers between her lips, finding her soft, wet and waiting. The sound she made as he entered her sent fire to his belly and he panted as he rocked his fingers inside her, trying not to focus on his now throbbing member. He wasn’t some green boy anymore.

Daenerys gasped as the heel of his hand rubbed against her while his three fingers moved inside. She bucked and groaned in a breathy voice, “I need you.”

Exactly what he was hoping to hear, he left her warmth to stroke himself, hungry at the long strings of her wetness coating him already. Jon set himself to her, running the head of his cock against that delicate pink until he found her entrance. Daenerys’ pleased moan rang in his ear and he thrusted inside her. He went slow at first, allowing her time to adjust to his thickness, his length, but Daenerys was not so tender or shy as she had been on the journey North that led to their daughter. She was forceful and she met his thrusts, bucking for more, tearing at his hair, her nails on his back. He buried himself to the hilt, savoring every moment.

 _Gods,_ he thought.

_The Hound, Brienne, Arya & Gendry _

“It’s too fucking early for the gods to hear anyone,” Sandor bitched at Brienne, this wall of a woman who forced his drunken hide out of bed before dawn to train. “Why is anyone in the godswood at this hour?”

“Perhaps to excuse your language,” Brienne chastised, glancing at the young girls who sought morning prayer before their days began. “You should remember you’re a part of the queen’s personal guard.”

“You think I gave a fuck about that in King’s Landing? The Queen’s probably getting her ass eaten out by our new cockless King right now,” he grumbled, wishing his own needs were attended instead of shrinking into fuck all in the cold. The whole goddamn castle had woken to news of the Queen’s marriage in the night. Lords whined like little cunts all morning that they weren’t there, that the once caged little bird had now taken a eunuch to her bed. Good for her. At least the eunuch king could probably use his tongue better than any of these Northern shits. An oathbreaker king, they complained. To match all the oathbreaker lords, he reminded them.

Big Brienne had that same look of wanting his guts on the fucking ground she always did, but it seemed a little more intense now. “You will address our Queen and King with proper respect, or do I need to show you how once again?”

They heard a slow clap from behind them. “Aren’t you two quite the pair now?”

Sandor swung around to that voice. Arya fucking Stark. He dismissed any sentimental shit his mind might trick him into believing. “Should have known you were too stubborn to die, girl.”

“I could say the same to you,” she retorted, walking toward them like she owned the damn place. He guessed she did in some respect. “I’m not a girl anymore.”

“Maybe not if you fucked the walking dead back to the seven hells, but you’re still the size of one. What’s with that fucking walk?”

“Do you remember what you used to say about Needle?” she asked, her hand on the pommel of her little sword. She drew a dagger, a fine dagger indeed, Valyrian steel, and flipped it back and forth with skill. Same show off as ever with her water dancing. “I bet I could kill any armored man no matter how large their sword with it. Or my little dagger. Do you like it?”

The handle was in front of him, held out by the girl with a confident smirk. He took it, examining the craftsmanship. “Always wanted Valyrian steel. You need a cunt to get some around here?”

She laughed at him, taking back her dagger and sheathing it with flare. Brienne looked less entertained. “I missed you.”

A clatter and something heavy hitting the dirt interrupted him. He turned to find the Baratheon bastard standing gobsmacked at Arya, his hammer on the ground. Even her cocky expression had turned. He rolled his eyes, these two little shits had met before. He motioned at Brienne to continue their practice elsewhere.

“Gendry,” the girl said slowly. “You’re a Baratheon, legitimized. Do I need to call you my lord, now?”

He ducked his head and smiled at her, “I don’t think you would even if I asked.”  

Sandor turned away before he vomited, knowing the two were locked in an embrace even as he stomped away with Brienne smacking his back with the hilt of her sword. She heard her say lightly, “Maybe not.”

  _Yara & Ellaria_

“If you ask nicely,” Ellaria drawled, reluctantly shrugging into warmer day clothing than she preferred.

Yara snaked her arms around her waist, kissing her neck. “That you accompany me to a meal and not lock yourself in these chambers like a second prison?”

“You forget who you speak to,” Ellaria hissed, stepping away and standing before the fire Yara had set. “It was your uncle who killed them.”

Yara sighed, tired of Ellaria’s moods the way she tired of Theon’s. “Do you still blame me, for the attack?"

“That would be the foolish act of a foolish girl, and I am neither.”

She watched her impassively, knowing it was a lie. It didn’t matter that they were ambushed; it had been under Yara’s command her daughters were slain, that almost a hundred ships and their crews were lost or mutilated. There wasn’t enough wine or lust in the world that could change this. They fucked in anger and in solace, fighting in her bed, tearing off each other’s clothes with bruises left for the morning. So she had taken the fiery woman, sickly from her time in the dungeons, back to Pyke to heal. She had refused to return to Sunspear a broken woman. Yara asked if she wanted to see her daughter put to rest in Dorne, but Ellaria spat she had seen her put to rest for months. She had said all there was to say to her daughter’s corpse.

Yara was furious at them both for acting so broken by life. Some did not have the luxury to break. She was more furious that she could not turn either away, that she rode to Winterfell for Theon and she took this spitting cobra with her because she couldn’t stand to be away from her. Everything about her was dark and Yara could lose herself in her desert skin forever if she wasn’t careful.

Perhaps she just envied them both the courage to fall apart. “Come on, love, you must eat.”

_Missandei & Grey Worm _

“I will not break fast just yet,” Missandei replied to him. “I am waiting on our Queen to rise.”

Grey Worm stood close to her, his hands running from her shoulders down. “Then you have time extra this morning.”

Missandei smiled, enjoying his warmth in this cold place. “Extra time, yes. What do you think of it, that there is now a King who has been cut?”

He traced circles on her bare shoulders, considering. “It does not change life for Unsullied.”

“It may change opinions on the practice and the people, if he is a good King.” She turned to face him, placing her slender hands on his bare chest. Of all the languages she spoke, none had a pleasant word for eunuch, none regarded them well. Even the Queen in the North had not known how to approach this man she wed. They had talked at length about it, and Missandei began to wonder if the way eunuchs were viewed bothered Grey Worm as it bothered her.

“It is all the same to Unsullied. It will not undo what was done,” he said in his even voice, his hands on her hips, pulling her closer. “Why does this worry you?”

She smiled at him and placed a hand on his cheek. “Because I want you to be happy one day.”

“Missandei of Naath is smarter than to say this,” he replied as he leaned his forehead against hers. “I am happy now, when I am with you.”

  _Theon & Sansa_

 _I could be happy,_ she thought suddenly as Theon began to kiss down her neck to her chest and took her breast into his mouth, his hands running down her sides. She had a hand in his hair as he flicked his tongue over her hardened bud. Sansa lulled her head back, enjoying as he sucked and licked her there, body humming that he had asked her permission to trail down her body with his tongue. She felt in control with him, safe. She knew there were things she was not yet ready for, despite the way her legs shook as he drew closer to her thick curls. But she knew she was also shaking with desire. She wanted him.

Sansa watched him carefully as he kissed the scars across her stomach tenderly, his eyes always seeking hers. She shifted, still uncomfortable, and he seemed to notice. He said softly, “Lie back.”

She paused for a moment before taking a breath and shifting to lay back against the soft furs. His scarred hands spread her knees slowly, a soft trail of kisses laid down her inner thigh before she felt his mouth meet her womanhood. She was following every movement he made, her breath hitching when his tongue, wide and flat, licked her from entrance to that spot she had discovered when she was twelve and curious in her bath. He felt so _soft_ between her legs as wet warmth took over her thoughts. The tip of his tongue danced and swirled over the little nub and it seemed to swell and jump at each lap he made. A loud moan leapt from her as he ghosted over a spot that felt so wonderful she might die if he didn’t stay there, and so she held his head in place with both her hands, panting as he continued. The louder she grew, the more fervent he became in his attentions. Her heart might beat out of her chest and as one hand traveled north to squeeze and twist her blushing bud, her body jerked of its accord, pulsing with heat as waves of tingling pleasure rocked her. Her mind was utterly blank as this feeling possessed her, shook her, and left her panting.

He lifted his head, his lips swollen and face wet with her, his eyes half lidded. She thought she had an idea of what Missandei had spoken of.

“Are you pleased, your grace?” Some years ago, she knows this question would have been asked with a knowing smirk, but now he seemed sincere. Breathless, she could only nod. He laid next to her and she put her head on his chest, listening to his heart beat. It was racing.

“I’ve heard tale that… there are ways,” she began hesitantly, “for a man who has been cut to still get something from this.”

He stroked her hair, staring off. “There are. But… I have no need for it.”

She traced a series of lines on his chest, debating if she wanted to press him. But she had noted, with relief, he had not once suggested he could enter her, with fingers or otherwise, and she chose to leave him be, for now. After all, winter was still here and she listened to the ravens fly with morning news.

_Wex & Qhorad _

“You fell the fucking bird or not?” Qhorad demanded of him. Wex pushed past him.

“Course I did. Who’s the archer, you or me? Here,” Wex shoved a scroll in his hand and dropped into a chair, pouring himself wine. They’d already spent too long in this frozen hell hole if you asked him. “A fucking woman’s drink, these Northern pricks couldn’t have ale for us, could they?”

Qhorad ignored him, prying open the scroll and reading it fast. He tossed it in the fire.

“Well?” Wex questioned. “Plan’s on or not?”

“Aye. We kill ‘em when the fire burns hottest.”

Wex didn’t understand that poetic talk and he snarled back at Qhorad. “The fuck that supposed to mean?”

Qhorad grinned wide. “You’ll know it when you see it.”


	25. Yara: Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yara leans on Theon; a fire breaks out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just two more chapters and an epilogue left! 
> 
> I wrote this after a 10 year writing hiatus, with no beta, and without any other involvement in the fandom, so I sincerely appreciate that anyone may have taken time out of their day to read what has grown so long! 
> 
> Happy New Year!

Yara stood at the battlements as her men prepared the stores to take back to the Iron Islands. Her brother had been crowned King in the North, although they all knew the true power lay with Sansa, the Stark in Winterfell. She already heard the gossip surrounding “The Eunuch King” and she did not envy her brother’s new fame nor the trouble that came with it. Yara didn’t move as she felt another approach her. She already knew who it was. “Come to supervise, little brother?”

“To apologize,” he replied, dressed now in black and fur, his hair cropped short again. “For choosing the North.”

“You’re still a Greyjoy,” she said, leaning over the railing, directing men laden with barrels. It had been the warmest day in weeks. The more her men could accomplish today, the better. “You’re my only brother. You still have duties to the ironborn. I’ll hold you to them, King in The North or not.” 

“How bad are the raids?” he asked and she ignored his imploring gaze. 

“You know our people. We take what we need, and the needs are many. Euron left the women and children to die in hunger. The men who survived have spent weeks on end fishing, but the nets come back without enough. It’s easier to raid the shores. It’s our birthright by the Drowned God.”

“Lady Mormont has already sought me out to make her complaints known. You might sleep in armour tonight.”

“So you can still jape,” she replied without humor. The return to the salt throne was soon at hand, her mind heavy with the most recent news that flew in on dark wings. She would leave without her baby brother, but the stores might stop the raids for a time. Their entire way of life was to be changed. Thralls were to be allowed any occupation, rewards to be fair and just. Salt wives were let free if they chose. She thought she might have lost her throne with the reforms, might meet the same fate her father did. Some questioned her leadership, thought her a dog of the Westerosi royalty, a feeble minded woman ruling with her heart over her head. Those who gained from the reforms kept the peace. But without food, she might as well have died in the wars.

She had entertained herself too long in the North; her most loyal men had perished at sea during Euron’s first attack. Her counsel was half made of men who chose Euron’s rule. She told her brother little of the danger of her position, but he was no fool. She needed him during the war, but this was her own making and her little brother had eyes set on following another Queen. 

“You drink too much,” Theon observed. She normally welcomed his gaze; it meant he had stopped cowering for a moment. But now it irritated her. The little cunt that had returned to Pyke with one hand down her breeches would never utter such a phrase. 

“You only think that because you forgot how to drink,” she shot back. Two men dropped a barrel of grain and she shouted down at them, “Pick it up to the last or I’ll set you to the sand for the tides myself.”

She ignored the small shudder she saw in him when she yelled. He straightened himself. “I saw you, with Daenerys in the dining hall.”

Yara kept her eyes on her men. “What of it?”

He only glanced at her, looking away. It set her teeth on edge, the fear she saw in him. Of all people he had to fear, the last was her. Still, he’d found more of his spine his since returning to Winterfell and bedding the Stark Queen. She had looked pleased since the wedding night. “You shouldn’t play that game with Daenerys.” 

“You’ve been in Westeros too long,” she sighed. He’d caught her drunk and overly friendly when he asked for her to attend a sudden wedding. She had been angry this was arranged without informing her, as head of house, and he had been angry he could never find her without ale in hand.  “Do you speak for your other family?” 

“It’s dangerous; you know she will marry Jon,” he advised quietly. 

Yara set her hands on the railing, minding the movement below her. “The Dragon Queen is a big girl. She makes her own choices, and none of them brought her to my bed.” 

Theon’s eyes were back to her; she supposed he was about to make his point. “We make stupid choices when we’re hurting.” 

She at times disliked how much wiser he had grown to be. It was much easier when she could look down on him, smug in the knowledge she was the rightful heir and he was a little shit getting himself into an idiot’s mess. She thought of Ellaria, still in her bed, crying most of the day. At least she would eat, if Yara was there. Her uncle delivered Ellaria to the Red Keep to watch her last daughter die. Yara rubbed her neck suddenly. She tried not to think of her time with her uncle, held captive on board  _ The Silence _ , or the way her uncle touched her--

“Let me help you end the raids,” her brother said, interrupting her thoughts. She nodded. Theon seemed to know where her mind had been; he had seen her collared and chained. “You… you never talked about it, about what Uncle Euron did to you.”

“Don’t worry yourself, little brother, it’s nothing men haven’t tried before,” she replied dismissively. Theon seemed to want to ask more, but he remained quiet. They stood together in silence for some time. Yara was always fixing the messes of others, always strong before anyone she faced. It was the only way to survive. It was too late for her to learn how to be anything else, but she appreciated his company anyway. They didn’t need words to pass the message between them. He would stand by her, even when she was too stubborn to show anyone else the truth: Yara Greyjoy could be hurt just as easily as the rest of them.

“Open the gates!”

They both drew their attentions to a rider who came to an abrupt halt. It was some lowborn peasant on the back of a skinny mare. He nearly collapsed on the ground as guards helped him to his feet.  

“Fire!” the man cried, gasping for air. “Everywhere. Winter Town is ablaze.” 

“In the middle of winter?” Yara asked, looking to Theon. His brow was furrowed in thought. “Is that not the town that was newly rebuilt?”

They were already moving to lower ground as men ran to assemble, waiting for orders. She saw Jon Snow and Sansa Stark appear, Lady Brienne and The Hound behind them. Theon said cautiously, “We have to ride out, but…”

“You think it intentional?”

He caught her gaze and she searched his eyes. “It may be nothing.”

“I’ll stay with her,” she answered before he need ask. “Attend your duties, King in the North.”

It was quickly decided the men would ride out, the three Queens to stay behind the safety of Winterfell’s gates. Theon left with Jon Snow, the Unsullied commander, Lady Brienne and a contingent of Unsullied, Ironborn, and Stark guard. As smoke appeared in the sky, something dark began to settle in the pit of Yara’s stomach. 


	26. Sansa: Traitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Treason comes to Winterfell.

“The people are already asking if it’s dragon fire,” Sansa stated, her eyes on Daenerys as the three Queens marched to the Great Hall to discuss the situation.

Her child in her arms, Daenerys replied sternly, “The rider would have noticed if my children razed the town. They are hard to miss. Do you really think it an accident?”

Yara nodded at three soldiers to accompany her. Guards trailed them all, Unsullied at the heels of Daenerys, The Hound following Sansa. Missandei and the baby’s wet nurse already waited there. Yara asked, “Lannister supporters?”

Once it was known to all peoples that Cersei destroyed her own city with wildfire, Sansa found it hard to believe any still supported her cause. Arya entered the hall, the newly naturalized Baratheon, Gendry, on her heels. She carried her sword, as always; he carried a hammer. They had been spending much time together, Sansa noted.

“Fires?” Arya asked seriously.

“Winter Town is on fire, I don’t know what it means--” Alarms peeled through the hall, bells clanging, bouncing back ringing that deafened them all.

Maester Wolkan entered quickly and whispered in her ear, “Winterfell is on fire.”

“Where?” she demanded, her blood lighting hot at the rising danger. Yara and Daenerys exchanged concerned glances.

“The stables, Your Grace,” he said, “The library and the North gate, at last report.”

“Take the men you need to put them out. Winterfell will not burn again,” she commanded and turned to Arya. “Go to Bran. I don’t like this.”

Within a moment, Arya and Gendry had disappeared, and Sansa was almost surprised she had no argument. Then, the doors to the Great Hall swept open to Ironborn soldiers. Yara Greyjoy stepped forward. “What is the meaning of this, Qhorad?”

“Fires, my Queen,” he said with a crooked grin. “We came to ensure your safety.”

Sansa watched the tension between them. Yara did not appear to take his word, her hand resting on her pommel. Daenerys handed her child to the wet nurse, stepping in front them.  “Then go lend a helping hand to put them out. Your Queen is safe.”

The Ironborn did not move. She counted more than twenty; more than Yara had brought with her days ago. The Hound drew his sword. “You heard your Queen. Get the fuck out or I’ll line the Hall with you. My Queen’s fond of red.”

The Unsullied had already moved to protect Daenerys, the Stark guards quick behind them. The Ironborn, Qhorad, stepped forward. “We’re no dogs of some Westerosi whores. We take what and who we want and we fuck them when we want to. You used to know that. Women don’t got the stones to rule.”

“Well then,” Yara mused lightly, sword drawn, tightly in hand. “You’ve made my job easy. I’ve wondered which of you craven cunts might plot against me. Your rock wives and children die as you think about getting your cocks sucked by salt wives. I’ll show you no mercy.”

Qhorad spat at his feet. “Euron sends his regards from the bottom of the Narrow Sea.”

And they charged. Sansa was yanked roughly toward the back doors, Yara’s hand tightly on her arm. But it too was blocked by Ironborn. A circle formed around them in the hall, guards of three kingdoms defending their Queens, at the center the baby. Daenerys pried a torch from the column, lacking any other weapons at hand. Yara Greyjoy stood in front of Sansa, an arm holding her back, and Sansa knew Theon had asked Yara to protect her.

Her eyes shut tight as blood splattered wet across her face; a guard was struck down front of her, revealing an Ironborn axe raised for a killing blow. Before Sansa could breathe, the Iron Queen spilled his belly on the stone floors, the scent of nightsoil and blood filling the hall. She stood in shock, her breath caught in her throat.

Sansa spun, trying to see what was happening. Clegane was cutting down the Ironborn two at a time, but their numbers were many. Half the Stark guards assigned her were on the ground, plumes of red painting the floors around them. An Unsullied soldier fell at her feet, his dark eyes wide and empty. Her back pressed against Missandei’s; Daenerys wielded her torch as a sword, burning any who came too close. She saw Missandei narrowly avoid an axe, pushing the soldier away from Daenerys. The three Ironborn soldiers seemed loyal to Yara, battling their bretherton without hesitation. Two were cut at the back and Yara yelled in rage, her sword coming down on the neck of a traitor. Everything seemed to move too slowly, as if they all fought in water.

The flash of a sword attracted her sight, long steel sweeping in an arc. It would strike Yara in the back; she was locked in combat with another. There would be no way she would live through such a blow. An Ironborn sword was within reach; Sansa kneeled and picked it up. She could only hear her own heartbeat in her ears, remembering the few lessons Brienne had begun to teach her. Her form, the position of her hands. She moved in one motion, lunging forward and stabbing the Ironborn through the side. As he fell, her hands began to shake.

She had killed men, but not before with her own hand. The steel was slick with red. Yara slew her opponent and stared at her with wide eyes. She nodded and Sansa turned back on the battle, holding her sword in front of her. It was too heavy, but it was something. If she were to die, it would be with a sword in her hands. Her father would be so proud and so disappointed.

But no longer did the Ironborn have their attention on the Queens, their backs turned to address a new enemy. It was Arya and Gendry at one door. Ellaria Sand with loyal Ironborn soldiers at the other. Sansa wasn’t sure which side of the Hall she felt worse for as she watched her sister dance and twirl, killing men before they knew what happened. Gendry’s hammer crushed in skulls in a single blow. The loyal Ironborn subdued their traitors with brutal ferocity.

Soon, it was done. The Great Hall was littered with bodies, injured men wailing and groaning, the air heavy with death. Arya was nowhere to be seen, but she returned quickly with the Maesters and more guards. Sansa stood still, dropping the sword, her mind trying to catch up with what happened. The loyal Ironborn bound any surviving traitors. She realized The Hound, wounded at his shoulder, was looking her over. He huffed in his usual manner, “You’ll live.”

Yara clasped her arm to the elbow and stared intensely into her eyes. “You saved my life.”

But since Yara had also saved hers, Sansa only smiled weakly in return.

Daenerys dropped the torch onto a still moving traitor, walking away with her babe in arms as he burned and screamed. None dared to help him.

The living traitors were already hauled out into the courtyard. Yara motioned for water troughs to be brought forth, wiping blood from her nose with the back of her hand. “We drown Ironborn in execution, to show our respect for our kin. But I will take you to no rivers that lead to the waters of the Drowned God. You’ll drown here, in these buckets of muddy piss water and your bodies will be burned.”

“It was Qhorad’s idea!” cried a traitor from his knees. Sansa pitied his desperate attempt to survive; but Yara Greyjoy would not spare him. “He waited for the last group loyal to Euron, the crew of _The Silence_. They forced us.”

Sansa watched Yara’s cold gaze at the man who spoke.

“Thank you for the information,” she said calmly and grabbed him by the back of the head, forcing him underwater. The rest of the loyal Ironborn took it as their queue and seven more heads plunged deep into the troughs, never to rise again as anything other than corpses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies never get to lead the battles, so here they did! 
> 
> Thank you for reading! :)


	27. Theon: Parting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As everyone goes their separate ways, Theon and Sansa have something to confess.

_ “These were intentional,” Jon said, kneeling down at the remnants of torches in the ashes. _

_ Theon looked around at the sites set apart to burn, to draw more men to them. He mounted his horse quickly, spinning her back toward Winterfell. “It’s the Ironborn. This is just a distraction.”  _

_ “How do you know, Your Grace?” asked Brienne, following her King and mounting as well. Jon rose to his feet. _

_ “Because I once took Winterfell,” he said darkly. His way was blocked then by the Ironborn who had accompanied them. A man named Wex that Theon recognized slit the throats of two of his fellow Islanders. The nearby Unsullied and Stark guardsmen had been dispatched, as well, those not spread across the town tending the fires. An ambush.  _

_ Jon Snow drew his sword, Brienne following. Theon’s heart was racing, panic rising. Winterfell would be under attack if not now, then soon.  _ Stay calm, they’re only ten in number.  _ He too drew his sword as they all stood their ground.  _

_ “You want to toss away every ounce of peace we’ve worked for?” Jon scolded.  _

_ “Fuck your peace. We’re given the right to reave and rape by the Drowned God. Westeros has always been made of cock-sucking curs, and we’ll not be your dogs.” _

_ Grey Worm appeared out of nowhere, spearing one of the men through the middle. Brienne kicked her horse and charged with a guttural roar, grazing one Ironborn with her horse, taking the very arm off another. Jon and Theon were close behind. So It began. _

The gates were just ahead, smoking rising from Winterfell itself. Thoughts of burnt bodies and Sansa’s cries assaulted him as he rode, but he did not stop. They had cut down the traitors and ensured the safety of the rest of the guard, who remained to combat the fires. The gates opened before him and he pulled his horse to a stop in the courtyard. He could see no fires still burning, except for several pyres lit in the center, more being assembled nearby. Since the battle with the dead, bodies were burned as precaution. A stableboy appeared and he dismounted. He heard the others ride in behind him, but he was sprinting toward the lit pyres, eyes searching everywhere for Sansa, for Yara. 

But they were not difficult to find. All three Queens stood in discussion as the fire burned. It was Daenerys who noticed them first. She walked past him, and Theon turned to see Jon embrace her and the child, terror in his eyes at what might have been. Theon wondered if his own face looked so foolish. He turned back in time to see Sansa toss herself against him and he held her closely, relief washing over him as he buried his face in her neck. 

“You’re safe,” he breathed. Yara met his eyes, and he knew his sister was betrayed. Ellaria approached her and tended to a wound on her cheek. As he moved to see Sansa’s face, he saw blood spatter there. It smeared across her pale skin and he wiped it away. “Your face…”

“I killed a man,” Sansa said matter of factly. “By my own hand.”

A part of him wanted to smile at her in pride of her accomplishment; another ached for her, having wanted to spare her such duty. He could only think to ask, “Are you alright?” 

“She saved my life,” Yara chimed in. “I’d say she’s fine. Theon, we must speak.”

Sansa placed a hand on his cheek. He leaned into her touch. “Go, I’ll tell you all about it later.” 

He regretted having to release her, but he saw her fall into the arms of Jon Snow and knew if she had needs, they would be tended to. He walked with his sister. “Euron’s men?”

“Aye,” she sighed. “Daenerys demanded we give up our way of life. Did you expect the men to all abide it?”

“No,” he agreed. She looked tired, more tired than he had ever seen her. His sister was one of the strongest people he had ever met, but he knew well that everyone had their limit. “You want me to return with you to the Iron Islands, to sort out who can be trusted.” 

She didn’t respond. Yara was too proud to ask him, now that he was sworn to another land, another woman. He wondered if Sansa would ever visit the Islands with him. He could show her the shores of his youth, however little there was to see. But if he left now, she would need to remain in Winterfell. Rebuilding would separate them, of course it would. They both had to have known it would happen; that’s why Sansa wanted to marry so quickly, to secure their alliance.

“I need you,” she said quietly and in its own way he knew it was a request. Although Yara had not seen him since he was eight years old, she had always tried to protect him, at times from even himself.  _ Don’t die so far from the sea. _

“I’ll sail with you,” he affirmed. 

The rest of their conversation was somber, as was the mood of the castle. Good men had died. Horses had died. Supplies were lost. The rest of the honored dead were set alight and the rest of the guard returned late after the fires in Winter Town had died down. The Lords and Ladies gave toast to those who fought and made their preparations to return to their homes. Jon and Daenerys determined they would ride back to King’s Landing in three days time, to take the throne together, a throne of ice and fire. The Unsullied would return with her. It was too dangerous to continue to have so much power in one location.

Ser Davos decided he would advise Yara until her rule were more stable before he returned to King’s Landing to stand at Jon’s side. Gendry chose to stay in Winterfell; Theon only realized why when he saw Arya standing on the tips of her toes to kiss Gendry in the hall. He wondered if Arya would soon have her own castle in the Stormlands or her own hold in the North. Stark women had a way of taking charge. Sansa told Brienne, with only a small gleam in her eye, she needed her to go on an important diplomatic mission to King’s Landing to restore the relationship between the Starks and Lannisters.

Sansa invited Theon into her chambers and that left only him to tell his Queen, his wife, that he had to leave her side. As he helped unlace her bodice, he said, “You were brave today, My Queen.” 

She groaned, shaking her head at him as her hair tickled his hands. “Please stop calling me by title when we are alone. It makes me think of how you addressed… Just Sansa.” 

“Sansa,” he murmured as he scooped back her hair to kiss her neck, and she shivered.

“I was terrified, but I understand why father always insisted that he take a man’s head himself. You feel the weight of it.” Theon did not reply; her words held more truth than she could ever know. “You’re going to tell me you’re leaving me.” 

He turned her to face him. “Yara needs me.” 

“I need you,” she said stubbornly, her blue eyes shining in the fire light. “I’ve been getting to like having my way. I could forbid you to go.” 

He placed his hands on her hips and drew her close. “Sansa.”

“What if you forget yourself and you never come back? Don’t think I did not notice you still lose time.”

He wished he could tell her that her concerns were absurd, but he still reminded himself daily of his name,  _ Theon Greyjoy,  _ and struggled on cold mornings to dress himself, so deeply did his body ache. But he was better, and for the first time in his miserable existence, hopeful he would see this winter through until spring. “You’re my anchor, so that I won’t drift too far to sea. I’ll return as soon as the raids are under control and the traitors have been rooted out. Why are you crying?” 

She laughed at him, then. “You’re still such an idiot, Theon. I thought I might die today and you tell me you’re leaving me.” 

“I’m sorry,” he said in earnest. He paused, the one thing he had been wanting to tell her for weeks caught in his throat. “I love you, Sansa.” 

Sansa wiped her cheek and took a deep breath. “I was scared today because I thought I might die before I could tell you… I think I may love you, too.” 

He laughed before he could stop himself, something that bubbled out from deep in his chest and he thought it might be the first time he had laughed in years.  _ Is this what it is to laugh again? _ She  _ may _ love him. When had it become he who was focused on romance and Sansa who had so little interest in it? They weren’t children anymore. He put a gentle hand on her cheek, unable to stop smiling. “Shall I leave you alone to think on it?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t you dare.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, we made it. Just an epilogue to go and this beast is through. Everyone in GoT deserves a ridic happy ending after all they go through. XD 
> 
> Thanks so much for taking the time to read. :)


	28. Theon: Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five years later, in Winterfell. 
> 
> This chapter also contains porn. Sansa grew into a wonderful top.

_I've walked along the edge_  
_I've seen my death_  
_It came before my eyes and blinded by the light_  
_I realized_  
_Too long I've been without_  
_The feeling of alive_  
_Lost inside the fog_

_I've been_  
_Lost inside my mind and I forgot that I am free._  
_I can be what I want to be._

_Live._  
_Find the means._  
_Be what you want to be._

"Be What You Wanna Be" - Sarah Fimm

 

Theon groaned loudly as he buried his head into the pillows, grabbing at the headboard for purchase and panting as he felt Sansa’s teeth graze his ass. She was three fingers deep inside him and he had a hard time believing she could draw such wicked noises from his throat with only those delicate hands. Sansa had always been a good student with perfect work.

The first time she wanted to try this, her cheeks had flushed pink and he froze solid the moment she touched him. She had been terrified she would hurt him and he had to stop her when the waking nightmares came too strong. Now, she had a pretty black leather harness and a long, smooth stone that fit it, and him, well. She had become wanton in the bedroom, preferring to give orders and have them followed, and he found it roused what little desire he had left every time she ordered him on his knees. No one could ever guess what the perfect lady, Sansa Stark, enjoyed behind closed doors. He suspected few men would indulge her so, and it amused him greatly that even as a cripple, his lady cried his name in her throws of passion. He could now allow himself this small bit of pride.

He continued to rock against her fingers and as she curled them to find the spot she sought, Theon’s legs shook and heat spread through his belly. While he panted like a two copper whore at Sansa’s ministrations, he could hear her own gentle sighs. _She’s touching herself,_ he thought, and upside down, between his legs, he could see two pale fingers dipping into her cunt, disappearing inside her. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._

He didn’t know what to call what happened when the pressure became too great and hot, hungry lashes of pleasure crashed through him. He had no seed to spill, but he still spurt from the place his cock had been and it felt as good as releasing into a warm cunt. In another lifetime, he would never let a woman fuck his ass with her fingers. But this was now and he would beg, borrow and steal to have Sansa inside him. He collapsed on the bed, spent, and caressed her thighs as she threw her head back and screamed her pleasure. She fell on top of him, laughing.

“It was Missandei,” she confessed, grabbing a towel from the nightstand and wiping herself down. Theon was still humming from his peak, so his answer was a small, questioning noise. “She was the one who told me what to do to you and how to do it. Even Grey Worm likes it.”

“Lucky us,” he mumbled and he grabbed her hand to kiss it fiercely. “I send her my thanks. On a raven?”

“You wouldn’t,” she grinned, using his chest as a pillow. “Can you believe it’s been five years since we married?”

“And four to the day since I returned from the Iron Islands.”

She played with his fingers, as she often liked to do. “Have you thought about what Bran asked?”

He wiped the sweat from his brow. Theon had thought a lot about what Bran asked. Bran had one of the first children of spring, the long winter had finally broken. But his marriage to a rising House in the Riverlands had ended in tragedy, the babe’s mother had died giving birth. Bran believed the babe had been meant for the crowned King and Queen to raise, to ensure a Stark in Winterfell. His role as the Three Eyed Raven did not make him a suitable parent, he had said. Bran had talked of going North again, to learn more from the ruins now made safer to access. The wildlings knew the name Stark as friend and ally, though their ways had changed little. 

“I have,” Theon replied. “But you could still have trueborn children of your own.”

Sansa rolled to her stomach and perched herself upon his chest to look down on him, annoyed by what he implied. “Theon, we’ve been through this. I don’t regret it. Your sister sits on the Salt Throne. My cousins sit on the Iron Throne. After the trouble with the Ironborn settled, there has been peace. Even House Stark and Baratheon have joined; and did any of us ever believe Arya would marry? Our marriage connects the three kingdoms. I told you I wished children, but I do not need bear them myself. And I love _you_ , not some lord with a prick to fill my belly out.”  

“Aye, you’ll have your way,” he said with a smile. He smiled more, these days. He had not blacked out in two years, though he would sometimes get too lost in his thoughts and miss whole conversations. He had approached The Hound and made a deal, that Theon would assist him with his terror of fire if The Hound would assist him in surviving crowds without jumping out of his very skin. They mostly spent their free time scaring the shit out of each other, but it was better than hiding in the castle forever. He could not miss one more feast with important guests. Sansa’s nightmares came fewer and farther and although Theon still often assisted her with her dressing, she would now call her handmaidens again. Baths gave him the greatest difficulty, but he did not sleep on the floor and Theon now took his victories where he could find them.

The first few years had been hard for Theon and though he never told Sansa, he confided to the Maester his frequent thoughts of death. Somehow, peace felt more oppressive than war to him. It was then he sought out The Hound, started to take more interest in the common people. Sansa was better suited to figures and justice. He wasn’t yet whole, but he mended.

“Theon, we’re going to be parents after all.”

Her words hit him as a blow might. _Father._ He could think of the weight of it later; the winter snows were melting and he wished to let some of the hate he had held so dearly melt, too. Theon kissed her. “We are.”

They would have five children, one of Stark blood, four orphans of Northern families. Their first son, Ned, would trick them into adopting his closest two friends, pointing out that he was not of their loins anyway. Sansa would say that’s what Theon deserved for insisting they educate the Winterfell orphans alongside their son. The lords and ladies of old Houses thought their rule strange, but it was peaceful and sending orphans into strong trades brought new bounty to the lands, so none complained too loudly. The long winter had been harsh, nearly killing them both, but the spring had taught them hope and it had taught them joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something sweet for the New Year. :) 
> 
> BTW, Sansa has her own lacquered wood toy and it was a gift from Missandei. ;) 
> 
> Thanks so much for finishing this fic out with me. I hope you enjoyed it! What to write next?


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